The disappearance of 14-year-old Noah Donohoe last June and the subsequent discovery of his body in a storm drain in north Belfast six days later was a tragedy of enormous proportions.
It was a highly unusual case, with police initially slow to release some details which might have helped to explain how Noah came to be in the area and what actually happened to him.
The serious public concern about the fate of the gifted and much loved schoolboy had to be addressed, and, in a vacuum, rumours about the circumstances surrounding the end of his bicycle journey across the city began to grow.
Detectives always said they believed he had received a head injury while falling from his bike, and had suffered from disorientation, removed his clothes and eventually ended up the storm drain, but not everyone accepted a version of events which lacked clarity on some key points and delays in completing a PSNI leaflet campaign in the neighbourhood did not help.
Noah's family, while welcoming the huge emotional support they had received from all sections of society, eventually had to ask people not to engage in conspiracy theories and instead assist with the provision of factual information.
A significant development came when, with the approval of the family, this newspaper reported that, according to a post-mortem examination, Noah had died from drowning, after earlier setting out to meet friends in Cave Hill country park in connection with a Duke of Edinburgh project.
When a second pre-inquest review hearing took place last week, coroner Joe McCrisken said categorically that, although investigations were continuing, there was no evidence that Noah had been attacked, and no evidence that any other person had been involved in his disappearance and death.
The hearing was told that CCTV had been able to track almost all Noah's movements until the stage when he arrived in Northwood Road and went between two houses to the site of the storm drain.
Mr McCrisken said that most of the speculation about the teenager which had spread on social media was `inaccurate and baseless,' and appealed for it to stop.
It must be hoped that his message is heeded and that the next stage of the coroner's deliberations will provide the Donohoe family with the definitive account of Noah's last moments which they badly need and absolutely deserve.
