It was the first murder of a tourist in Mauritius,[2][3] and the Mauritian Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam expressed his sympathy to the Harte and McAreavey families.

She taught Irish and Religion at St Patrick's Academy, Dungannon, where she ran the "Pioneer Club" encouraging young people to abstain from alcohol.

[18] A special Mass was held simultaneously in Mauritius, led by the island's senior priest, Father Philippe Goupille.

[19] On 6 June 2012, John McAreavey said he had been handcuffed by police officers and they examined his body for marks on the day of his wife's murder.

[24] The Major Crime Investigation Team (MCIT) of Mauritius Police Force faced severe criticism for its handling of the case and for claims by Treebhoowoon, who alleged that police beat a confession out of him, since he was subjected to three days of beatings by officers before he confessed that he strangled McAreavey because she caught him and co-defendant Sandeep Moonea stealing from her hotel room.

After two hours of deliberation, the jury returned a unanimous verdict, finding Avinash Treebhoowoon and Sandeep Moonea not guilty.

[31] Lawyers representing Treebhoowoon and Moonea called for all evidence in the case to be given to non-Mauritian investigators, describing Mauritius's MCIT as "incompetent".

"[33][34] Some Irish people started an internet campaign calling for a boycott of the Mauritian tourism sector, one of the main pillars of the island's economy.

[38] On 15 July 2012, a new Mauritian newspaper called Sunday Times published photographs of the hotel room crime scene, including images of McAreavey's body in its 35th edition.

[43] The Press Employees Union in Mauritius (USEP) issued a statement in support of Hosany: "Both the local press and international news agencies regularly show pictures of murder, bloodied demonstrators, corpses of people killed or injured in conflict areas, among others, The USEP considers that the treatment suffered by the editor of the Sunday Times in the hands of the Mauritius Police is disproportionate to the offences charged.

Thirty-eight people were interviewed, 68 witnesses participated in a reconstruction of the circumstances of the murder and 350 DNA samples were sent to a laboratory in France.

McAreavey's legal representative, Dick Ng Sui Wa, said that the two parties had reached the confidential settlement through mediation.

[49] In August 2020, he reported that the Mauritian government had said it had launched a new inquiry into his wife's death, though he questioned its timing, since it coincided with his criticism of Liverpool FC's new commercial partnership with Mauritius.

[56] Lawyers Ravi Rutnah, Neelkanth Dulloo and Sanjeev Teeluckdharry planned to request an arrest warrant against him to enable further questioning.