Death of 22-year-old woman in Cork squat investigated

Gardaí are keeping an open mind on the death of a 22-year-old woman in Cork at the weekend and say the course of the investigation will be determined by the postmortem results .

Officers were called to the derelict building on Sheares Street at the back of the Mercy University Hospital by paramedics who had responded to an emergency call just before 7am on Sunday.

Paramedics found the woman, named locally as Amy McCarthy, a mother of one from Greenmount on the southside of Cork, in an upstairs room in the three-storey building.

Ms McCarthy was pronounced dead at the scene by a doctor and gardaí were alerted and the scene cordoned off and preserved until senior detectives arrived .

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Assistant State Pathologist Dr Margaret Bolster examined the woman’s body in the premises.

Ms McCarthy’s body was removed to Cork University Hospital, where Dr Bolster will carry out an autopsy on Monday morning .

Gardaí believe Ms McCarthy had entered the building with a number of other people on Saturday.

It is understood that one of these other people raised the alarm just before 7am on Sunday when they entered the upstairs room where Ms McCarthy had been and failed to rouse her.

Gardaí have spoken to three men who were in the building on Sunday morning and they have taken preliminary statements.

Gardaí said they have been able to establish a reasonably detailed timeline of the woman’s movements on Saturday and believe that she was last seen alive at about 8.30pm.

Garda technical experts have begun a forensic examination of the scene and officers have also begun examining CCTV footage from premises on Sheares Street and surrounding areas.

A downstairs window to the premises was smashed, possibly by people seeking to gain entry to the building, and gardaí believe it is only in recent days that people began to use it as a squat.

Anyone who may have noticed or heard anything unusual in the Sheares Street area or has any information that can assist gardaí is asked to contact the Bridewell Garda station on 021-4943330.