GARDAÍ IN Killarney are continuing to question a 19-year-old man in connection with the murder of the Killarney student Stephen Lyne who was found stabbed yards from his home on Ross Road, a major tourist route, in the early hours of Thursday last.
The man being questioned is from the Killarney area and he has been arrested on suspicion of withholding information, said Supt Michael Maher, the head of the 30-strong Garda investigation team.
Dozens of teenagers who met Stephen Lyne (17) on the night in Killarney town centre as he moved between several groups of teenagers have been interviewed by gardaí.
Detectives were pursuing “a number of lines of investigation” and there had been an “unparalleled response” to appeals for information about the attack, said Supt Maher.
The investigation was “a complicated jigsaw” he said, adding that the Garda was quite pleased with progress.
A number of houses have been searched.
Robbery and mugging are understood to have been ruled out as motives.
Gardaí suspect the attack on the teenager was not random and he was targeted by persons who knew him to be on his way home after a night out in Killarney.
The Garda are investigating whether an incident or incidents prior to the time of the attack were a factor.
A postmortem revealed that the fourth-year student at the Killarney Community College died from a single stab wound.
He was found on a grassed area at about 1.30am, but had not been there long.
He was pronounced dead at the scene.
A number of items have been recovered from the scene and are being forensically examined, say gardaí.
These items include cigarette butts.