GARDAÍ IN Cork are to continue with their investigations after last night releasing without charge a man arrested for questioning about a suspected arson attack which claimed the life of a 25-year-old woman and her five-year-old nephew.
Detectives spent all of yesterday questioning the man about a suspected petrol bomb attack on the O’Dwyer family home at Nutley Avenue in Mahon in which Helena O’Dwyer and her nephew, Ryan, perished.
Officers interviewed the man about a complaint they had received from Ms O’Dwyer in which she said he had assaulted her on April 13th in her home elsewhere in Mahon, where she lived with her five-year-old daughter.
Gardaí also questioned the man about an alleged threat that she would be burnt out of her house.
Ms O’Dwyer and her daughter moved back to stay with her parents, Joe and Helena O’Dwyer, at the family home at Nutley Avenue on Saturday night after she became fearful over the threat.
Fire broke out at the O’Dwyers’ two-storey end-of-terrace house, owned by the local authority, at about 3.15am on Sunday morning.
It is understood the man who was arrested has strongly denied that he ever left his own home after returning there on Saturday night.
Detectives were yesterday continuing to check CCTV footage from a number of business premises in the Mahon area, including a number of petrol stations, to see whether they could find any sighting of the suspect on Saturday night or Sunday morning.
Garda technical experts are still awaiting the results of a number of forensic tests to establish whether or not an accelerant was used to start the fire.
Gardaí believe the fire began in the downstairs front room of the house, but that with a number of internal doors left open the flames and fumes quickly spread, engulfing the area upstairs, where Helena and Ryan were overcome by smoke.
A postmortem by State Pathologist Prof Marie Cassidy at Cork University Hospital was completed late on Sunday night and confirmed both Ms O’Dwyer and her nephew died from smoke inhalation.
Meanwhile, Ms O’Dwyer’s parents, her daughter Courtney (5) and her sister Dawn and Dawn’s two children, William (4) and Katelyn (2), were all discharged yesterday from Cork University Hospital, where they had been receiving treatment for smoke inhalation.
Ms O’Dwyer’s parents, Joe and Helen, yesterday spoke of their devastation at the loss of their daughter and grandchild. “We have lost two precious members of our family and we are heartbroken. Helena was a lovely normal 25 year old who was doing her best to rear her beloved daughter Courtney. She adored her daughter who from the moment she arrived brought love into all our lives. Ryan and Courtney were like twins. They were both five and they did everything together. Now they won’t be making their Communions and Confirmations together,” said the couple in a statement.
Local Sinn Féin councillor Chris O’Leary said plans were being drawn up to raise money to replace furniture and other items lost in the fire.