Two held over murder of Cork man

GARDAÍ WERE last night continuing to question a man and a woman in connection with the murder of a 25-year-old Cork man whose badly beaten body was found in a field in north Kerry last November.

Detectives investigating the murder of John McManus, originally from Fitzgerald Place, Fermoy, arrested a woman in her 30s yesterday morning at a house in the Gurranebraher area on the north side of Cork city.

She was arrested under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act which allows for detention of up to 24 hours and was being questioned at Gurranebraher Garda station.

Yesterday at 3.30pm detectives arrested a man in his early 40s at a separate location on the north side of the city, again under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act, and took him to Mayfield Garda station.

Mr McManus was last seen at the flat he had been renting at Verdon Place on Wellington Road on the city’s northside on October 30th last. When he failed to make contact with his family, they notified gardaí who gained entry to the flat.

Gardaí found indications an assault had taken place and a week later, on November 6th, Mr McManus’s badly beaten body was discovered dumped on some waste ground at Ferrybridge just outside Ballyduff village near Listowel in north Kerry.

The body had been left in some undergrowth without any great effort having been made to conceal it and gardaí suspect that whoever dumped his body intended returning to bury it.