THE MOTHER of Anastasia Kriegel text her “home now” when the schoolgirl didn’t answer her mobile phone shortly after she was last seen by her family, a trial has heard.

Geraldine Kriegel told the trial of two 14-year-old boys accused of Ana’s murder that she was “immediately concerned” when she returned home from work and was told by her husband Patrick that Ana had left the house with Boy B.

The youths have pleaded not guilty to the murder of Ms Kriegel at Glenwood House, Laraghcon, Clonee Road in Lucan on May 14 last year.

Known as “Ana”, the naked body of the 14-year-old was found at the disused farmhouse three days after she was reported missing by her mother and father.

One of the boys, Boy A, has also denied a charge of aggravated sexual assault.

It is the prosecution case that Boy B “lured” Ana to the derelict farmhouse and then watched “voyeuristically” as the other boy sexually assaulted and murdered her.

It is also alleged that investigating gardai found a zombie mask, shin guards, knee pads and gloves in a backpack worn by the boy who allegedly carried out the attack.

In her evidence this morning, Mrs Kriegel told prosecution counsel Brendan Grehan SC that she returned home from work about 5.20pm on May 14. She had earlier missed a phone call from Ana at 4.02pm and again at 4.03pm but she was in a meeting and couldn’t answer.

Mrs Kriegel said she rang Ana around 5.10pm, when she was on the train home from work, but Ana hadn’t answered.

Mrs Kriegel said her husband Patrick was in the garden when she got home.

“Where’s Ana?”, she asked.

Patrick told her that Ana had left the house with Boy B.

“What was he doing with Ana?” she asked her husband. “He has nothing to do with her,” she told the Central Criminal Court.

Mrs Kriegel said that “nobody called for Ana” because she had “no friends”.

She said she immediately text Ana “home now”.

Again there was no answer, so Mrs Kriegel said she text Ana “answer me now or I’m calling the police”.

Mrs Kriegel said she was torn between feeling like a paranoid and an over protective mother.

• Read More: Ana Kriegel murder trial: Boy who ‘lured Ana to house watched as she was murdered’

She then asked her husband what direction Ana had gone when she left home, and she went searching the area.

She couldn’t find Ana, so she returned home around 6pm and had her dinner.

She then got her car, and went out searching for Ana a second time. She thought Ana might still be with Boy B, but she said that she “couldn’t see her anywhere”.

Mrs Kriegel said she later contacted a friend, a retired detective, and he told her to go to the gardai, and around 9pm she went to Leixlip Garda Station.

Mrs Kriegel said it was unusual for Ana not to answer her phone, and even if Ana was annoyed with her mother, she’d respond to a text, saying “I’m not answering you”.

She said she spent the next three days searching for Ana, and she later identified her daughter’s body in the Dublin City Morgue.

Earlier, Mrs Kriegel told the court that the family had a party on the day before Ana went missing. They’d had pizza, and Ana had gone to the chipper to get a spice bag because she didn’t like pizza.

Ana had later gone upstairs and created a long video for YouTube, she said.

On May 14, Mrs Kriegel said she went upstairs to wake Ana before she went to work. She kissed her goodbye, and Ana asked her to write a note for school to allow Ana to attend her counsellor later that day.

Mrs Kriegel agreed with Damien Colgan SC, for Boy B, in cross examination, that she found a condom under Ana’s pillow a week before her disappearance.

She said that when she was questioned by gardai after the disappearance her mind was “frantic”.

Cross examined by Patrick Gageby SC, for Boy A, she said Ana could get angry and throw things around the room, but she “wouldn’t hurt a fly”.

She agreed it had been suggested that they would get a punch bag as a vehicle to absorb that energy.

The trial continues before Mr Justice Paul McDermott and a jury of eight men and four women.

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