The Garda investigation into the murder of Niamh Murphy, the 17-year-old girl found murdered in a derelict house in Ballsbridge, Dublin, last Friday, is trying to discover the identities and whereabouts of vagrant or homeless people who may have stayed there.
Gardaí yesterday began questioning people living and working in the vicinity of the house in Pembroke Road about people who came and went from it.
It is believed that dozens of homeless people could have used the house. Those who squatted there accessed it to the rear, through a lane between Pembroke Road and Shelbourne Road.
Sources close to the investigation described the murder as particularly brutal and are concerned that the murderer could strike again. Ms Murphy, who ran away from her family home in Salthill, Galway, almost two years ago, received extensive slash wounds from a pair of garden shears.
Her death was reported to gardaí by a man in his 20s who described himself as her boyfriend. He was questioned by gardaí at Donnybrook station on Friday evening, but was unable to provide much information about the identities of other people who came and went from the house.
Ms Murphy had been living rough in Dublin for up to a year and before that in an assortment of hostels and other abandoned properties in Galway. She had been offered hostel accommodation in Dublin but tended to live rough, begging in the city-centre.
Questioning by gardaí is expected to continue during the week as detectives try to build up a picture of the movements of homeless people in the Ballsbridge area. The surrounding buildings are mainly offices, so few people would be aware of the nocturnal movements of people who used the house.
Detectives are also questioning members of the homeless community in the city-centre and checking records for previous attacks on the homeless and on prostitutes who operate in the Grand Canal area.