Gardaí investigating the murder of a 19-year-old woman in Cobh in Co Cork are focusing on the last reported movements of the teenager in the hope that they will lead them to catching her killer.
Detectives are investigating a report from one person to whom they've spoken that Sheola Keaney was seen alive at 10.30am on Friday, July 14th in the Rushbrook area of the town.
Officers have spoken to a number of Sheola's friends who saw her at 3.30am on Friday after she left a disco at the Commodore Hotel in the company of a young man, but they have yet to receive confirmation of the later sighting in the Rushbrook area at 10.30am. The Irish Times understands that gardaí believe that Sheola was killed in the general vicinity of where her body was found, off a laneway near Newtown in Cobh, rather than that she was killed elsewhere and her body brought there and dumped.
Forensic experts from the Garda Technical Bureau yesterday concluded their examination of the scene where Sheola's body was found and they removed several items for further analysis.
Sheola was reported missing by her mother, Carol, at around 1am on Saturday, and it was 8.30pm on Sunday before her body was located hidden under some scrap metal and iron sheeting in a ditch off the laneway near Newtown. Gardaí believe Sheola was killed sometime in the early part of Friday rather than on Friday night or Saturday morning and this view is supported by Assistant State Pathologist Dr Margaret Bolster's postmortem examination.
However, the particularly warm weather last weekend has made establishing an exact time of death impossible and gardaí have had to work with a general period of time rather than a specific short time period. Gardaí have also not discounted the possibility that Sheola may have known her killer. The postmortem examination has confirmed that she was killed by being strangled manually but there was no evidence of her being sexually assaulted.
However, the investigating team is awaiting the results of tests on a number of samples and swabs taken by Dr Bolster during her postmortem.
Meanwhile, teams of detectives have been continuing with door-to-door inquiries in the Newtown and Rushbrook areas in the hope that someone might have noticed something suspicious in either area in the early hours of Friday morning.
Insp Martin Dorney said gardaí were currently investigating several lines of inquiry and again appealed to the public for assistance by phoning Cobh Garda station on 021-4908530.
Sheola, who is survived by her parents Peter and Carol, will be removed this evening at 7pm from Cobh Hospital Mortuary to St Colman's Cathedral in Cobh. She will be buried in St Colman's Cemetery following requiem mass on Thursday at 2pm.