Initial investigations with hotel staff confirmed that John had remained at the Banyan restaurant, an outdoor dining area, after his wife returned to the room alone.
It was clear, assistant commissioner Yoosoof Soopun would later say, that the young accountant must be ruled out as a suspect. An immediate order was given for his release.
As news filtered through to Ireland that Michaela, the daughter of Mickey Harte, one of the most famous figures in modern Gaelic football history, was dead, John was alone on a paradise island thousands of miles from home.
It fell to hotel manager Bruce Lunot to ferry him home from Piton that night, back to Legends hotel to spend the third night of his Mauritian honeymoon not with his wife, but under the watchful eye of a nurse. “She was able to give me a relaxing tablet,” he would later recall in a Mauritian court. “I can remember waking at 6 in the morning.”