The 15-year-old youth beaten in a vicious sectarian attack in Co Antrim at the weekend died in hospital last night. Michael McIlveen died at Antrim Area Hospital at 8pm, the PSNI said late last night.
His family was understood to have been at his bedside.
The teenager was attacked by a group in a car park in Ballymena at around 12.30am on Sunday, according to local reports. Police have upgraded the case from one of suspected attempted murder to murder.
Two men were arrested on Sunday morning and two more men were taken in for questioning yesterday. The PSNI said a fifth suspect, a juvenile, had also been detained last night. Local representatives have appealed for calm and for the public to help the PSNI find the killers.
According to a relative, the dead youth was set upon by several people and beaten repeatedly with a baseball bat by at least one of them while another "jumped on his head".
A suspected loyalist gang had chased the boy and another youth for about a mile from the IMC Cinema in the town after "an altercation" at the cinema, police believe. His friend managed to escape but the victim was caught in the car park behind a department store where he was assaulted by as many as 10 youths.
Afterwards Michael McIlveen managed to make his way to his home in the Dunclug Estate in Ballymena.
On the way, according to a relative, he was able to explain to another person how the group beat him up, how he was struck several times on the head with the baseball bat and how some of his assailants "jumped on his head".
But by the time he arrived at his home his voice became slurred and the effect of the attack began to have its impact, a cousin of the teenager told BBC Radio Ulster. He was attacked because he was a Catholic, his relative said.
This claim was supported by local PSNI Supt Terry Shevlin. "We are quite clear that the motive for this assault was of a sectarian nature," he said yesterday.
There have been a number of similar, though less serious, assaults in Ballymena in recent months.
On Sunday night a 45-year-old Protestant man was beaten in the Dunclug estate in what is also believed to be a sectarian attack. His injuries are not life-threatening.