Gardaí in Cork were unable to say last night whether the death of a 45-year-old woman earlier in the day was due to foul play.
The woman's body was found in an apartment in the Leitrim Street area of the city after a caller alerted a local Garda station after midnight on Monday.
The apartment was sealed off for forensic examination and last night the results of a post-mortem examination were expected to determine if what the gardaí described as a suspicious death was murder.
The woman is understood to Ms Nora Kiely of Mallow, who lived alone in the Cork apartment.
She was unemployed and had previously been a psychiatric patient.
Gardaí would not say whether bruises to her neck were the result of a fall or a struggle.
Ms Kiely used a local public-house telephone last week to make a complaint to gardaí about a fracas in the same apartment building.