Overseer James Cooke and a Mark Connelly had gone to the Flahertys' hut in search of a calf recently stolen from his land.
Honor "was in a very sickly condition ... the day was extremely cold and severe ... he did not hear the woman complain during the journey; she was offered bread by her husband but refused to eat it."
Her husband says that they were so treated that all their family died of starvation, and shocking to relate that the unfortunate victim, the deceased, cut off the feet from the ankles of one of the children and eat of them.
The child's grave was investigated: ... a short distance outside (the cabin), covered merely with a sod and a few stones, lying on the surface of the ground, where the bodies of two of the children.
It was impossible ... for any medical man to come to a conclusion as to whether the fleash of the legs had been torn or cut, the bodies being far advanced in decomposition.