Crime & Law

Gardaí investigate ‘suspicious’ death of man in Waterford flat

Body of man found at Wellington Street apartment block has yet to be identified

Gardaí said they are treating the death in Waterford as ‘suspicious’. Photograph: Bryan O’Brien

Conor Kane
Wed May 31 2017 - 14:04

Gardaí are attemping to identify a man who was found dead in suspicious circumstances in an apartment block in Waterford city.

Residents of the block on Wellington Street close to Ballybricken Green expressed shock at the death of the man who is believed to be from Somalia and in his mid-40s. It is not yet clear if the man was a resident of the apartment where he was found dead.

The discovery was reported to Waterford Garda station at about 9.30am on Wednesday. Emergency services visited the block but the man was pronounced dead at the scene.

Members of the Garda technical bureau carried out a forensic examination of the scene before the man’s remains were removed to University Hospital Waterford where State pathologist Dr Marie Cassidy was due to carry out a postmortem on Wednesday night.

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The results of the postmortem will determine the direction of the investigation into the death but gardaí are treating the matter as “suspicious”.

“I’d ask anyone with information on it to contact our incident room here in Waterford,” Supt Chris Delaney said.

‘Scary’

Abdullaha Musa, who has lived in the Waterford city area for three years, said what happened was “really scary” and “sad” and what everyone had been talking about all day.

Mr Musa said he heard that suspicions were raised when the man did not turn up for work. “I’m trying to picture him but I can’t guess who it was”.

Another resident, Christine Hearne, said she only lived four apartments away from where the body was discovered but did not know the occupant.

“I only heard about it on Facebook, I didn’t hear anything this morning. It’s a bit scary.”

A local businessman said the first he heard about the incident was when a garda car pulled up near his premises in the moring.

“We thought first it was about a fire that happened yesterday,” he said in relation to an incident that happened in a different building on the street on Tuesday. “It was only at lunchtime when we saw the car was still there that we realised there was more to it.”

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