GARDAÍ WERE last night continuing to question a man about the death of a 57-year-old woman whose body was found with serious head injuries at her home in Midleton in east Cork on the morning of Easter Sunday.
Detectives arrested the man in Cork city on Monday afternoon and brought him to Midleton for questioning about the murder of Catherine Smart, whose body was found at her house in Bailick Court at about 9.45am on Sunday.
The man was arrested at 4.10pm on Monday under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act, which allows gardaí to detain suspects for up to 24 hours, but the questioning was suspended overnight on Monday night and resumed yesterday at 8am.
The 24-hour detention was due to expire at about midnight last night, at which point gardaí, in contact with the Director of Public Prosecutions, would have had to decide either to charge the man or release him without charge.
Garda technical experts have concluded their forensic examination of Ms Smart’s house, where gardaí found her partially clothed body on the kitchen floor after a call was made to the emergency services.
A postmortem examination revealed Ms Smart had sustained a number of blows to the back of the head.
Gardaí believe Ms Smart was fatally assaulted some-time between 5am and 9.45am on Sunday, as officers had called to the house at 5am that morning after she dialled emergency services to say that she could not gain entry to the house upon returning home.
There was no sign of a forced entry to the house and gardaí have begun checking CCTV footage from a nearby commercial premises to see whether there is any evidence of anyone entering or leaving the Bailick Court estate during these hours.