Neighbours in the busy Letterkenny estate where the bodies of Catriona Innes (26) and her seven-year-old daughter Katelyn were discovered yesterday spoke of their shock at what had happened.
Blue and white plastic Garda tape cordoned off an area within a 200m radius of the semi-detached house in which Ms Innes and her daughter lived.
Kelly Bogan, who lives around the corner from the house, said Katelyn had a beautiful face and lovely mop of blond hair.
"Katelyn was a lovely wee girl. She was at our door singing on Friday last. We used to give her a bag of crisps or a bar each time she sang. She had a lovely wee voice. They used to live across the road from us until about six months ago," she recalled.
"She was a bubbly girl. So lovely. It's hard to believe," she sighed.
Like most estates in large towns across the country, many people no longer know their neighbours.
"I know a couple of lads around there who I used to play football with," said another resident.
"Maybe if I seen a photograph of the mother I might remember. I've kids around the same age as that little girl. It's shocking. It's the third suicide in this estate alone in the past few years."
Local bus driver Cathal McGettigan remembered Katelyn as a quiet girl who got the bus to school each morning.
"I stopped outside the house on each of the last two mornings and I blew the horn outside her house this morning. It's hard to believe," he said.
Assistant State Pathologist Dr Michael Curtis is due at Letterkenny General Hospital this morning to carry out a postmortem on the two bodies. Gardaí would make no comment until the results of the postmortem are known.