Troops hunt killer of boy, 5

The intensive search for the young County Kildare man who stabbed his next door neighbour's five-year-old son to death and wounded the child's aunt was yesterday stepped up after an elderly widow was found with serious head injuries outside her ransacked home at Newbridge, five miles from the scene of the first attack.

Irish army troops, along with tracker dogs and a helicopter were yesterday searching farms around Newbridge, while a team of divers trawled the nearby River Liffey.

Wearing a balaclava, the attacker entered the Malone home at Caragh, County Kildare, shortly before 9pm on Saturday. He forced Mary Malone upstairs where he tied her up on the floor of her bedroom. He then entered a second bedroom where Patricia Brereton, her sister, was looking after the children.

He stabbed Mrs Brereton in the back, piercing a lung. As she collapsed, the attacker turned to the eldest child, Ciaran, 5, and cut his throat in front of the boy's two-year-old brother. A third child, 10 month's old, was asleep in another room.

The children's father, David Malone then arrived home and grappled with the attacker, while Mrs Malone broke free and, carrying her wounded son, ran to neighbours for help. The attacker broke away and escaped.

Police wish to interviewJerome Kavanagh, 22. He had frequently acted as babysitter for the Malone children and other neighbouring families.