Shirley Finlay had a "beautiful spirit". She was "brutally murdered, her young body dumped like trash", said Fr John Doherty. He had baptised Shirley 24 years ago in St Gerard's Church on Belfast's Antrim Road, and on Saturday he conducted her funeral Mass there. She would have been 25 four days after her murder.
Shirley Finlay's partially clothed body was found after it had been dumped in a car park behind a Baptist church in Ballymena, Co Antrim, two weeks ago. She had been strangled and her body had been wrapped in a duvet. The PSNI said that a sexual motive was suspected.
No one has been charged with the murder, and Fr Doherty said "the hearts and minds of many of us are filled with anger, the desire for revenge and the longing for justice." He prayed that "whoever carried out this terrible crime" should give themselves up or be caught quickly, and appealed to anyone with information to come forward.
Shirley Finlay had led a troubled life. Her mother, Jean, was a schizophrenic who was unable to care for her. Her natural father is not believed to have played any part in her life. She was given up for fostering as a baby. Her foster sister, Joanne Corry, wept as she described the day baby Shirley came into her family as the happiest in her life, and the day she left, at 13, as the saddest. "My door was always open to you. You were, and always will be, my wee sis, Shirley," she said.
After leaving the Corry family, Shirley was fostered for a time by the Brady family. Her foster brother, Jim Brady, also spoke emotionally at the funeral. When the fostering relationship broke down, she moved for a time to a home for teenage girls in Co Armagh, and then to the Simon Community in Belfast.
For the last two years she had been living alone in a flat in the Ballykeel area of Ballymena and had lost contact with those who had cared for her in Belfast. After her murder, the PSNI described her as "a vulnerable young girl . . . quite a loner" and with a history of mental health problems. She is believed to have spent a lot of time walking the streets and in shopping centres, and was friendly with other marginalised young people.
Fr Doherty read out a letter Shirley had sent to thank a teacher who helped her during her difficult teenage years. "The things I have taken for granted have turned out to be the best things in my life," she wrote.