GARDAÍ FEAR the chief suspect for the murder of Malawian woman Rudo Mawere had fled to Northern Ireland by the time her body was found in a luggage bag in north Dublin last Sunday morning and may have now travelled to Britain by ferry.
It has also emerged that the suspect caught a taxi carrying the bag with the remains inside, before alighting in a housing estate and leaving the bag at a row of wheelie bins where it lay overnight.
Detectives are working on theory that Ms Mawere was killed by a male friend she had lent money to. They believe Ms Mawere and the man, who is also African, may have rowed about the money last Saturday and that the 26-year-old was killed during the row, before the man panicked and stuffed her remains in a bag on wheels which he then dumped.
A flat on Aughrim Street, Stoneybatter, in Dublin’s north inner city, has been identified as the murder scene and has undergone two days of examination by members of the Garda Technical Bureau. Residents of the house divided into six flats have been interviewed by gardaí and door-to-door inquiries were carried out in the surrounding area yesterday.
Ms Mawere’s body was found in a suitcase by a passerby on St David’s Terrace, Blackhorse Avenue, early on Sunday. It is understood to have been abandoned there some 12 hours earlier.
She was fully clothed and had a plastic bag over her head when found. A postmortem showed she died as a result of asphyxiation.
A Garda source said detectives were very keen to speak to an African man who knew Ms Mawere and lived in the house on Aughrim Street, a few hundred metres from where the body was found.
It is believed that the main suspect may have left Ireland and gardaí are understood to be liaising with authorities in the UK and other countries in an attempt to trace him.
Ms Mawere lived in a flat on Leinster Road in Rathmines and had studied at the Business and Training Institute on Parnell Square in the city centre for the last two years.
Gardaí have spoken to her flatmate, who last saw her on Saturday afternoon, and classmates to piece together her movements prior to her death.
Witnesses have come forward with information about an argument between an African man and woman in the Stoneybatter area in the hours before Ms Mawere’s death. A taxi driver is also understood to have contacted gardaí to say that he picked up a man with a large suitcase in the Aughrim Street area on Saturday evening and carried him for a short distance before helping him to remove the bag from the boot.
Anyone who may have seen unusual behaviour around Blackhorse Avenue or North Circular Road on Saturday is asked to contact the Bridewell Garda station at 01-666 8200, the Garda confidential line at 1800-666 111 or any Garda station.