A man arrested on Tuesday in connection with the discovery of a woman’s body in Newcastle, Dublin is still being detained by gardaí.
The man (45) was arrested after the remains of Helen Donegan, a 30-year-old mother of one who had been missing from her home in Celbridge, Co Kildare, for almost seven weeks, were found in a car boot in a rented lock-up.
The investigation into her death was yesterday upgraded to a murder inquiry after a postmortem found she had been shot in the chest.
The man was arrested within hours of the body being found. He is being questioned on suspicion of murder and can be detained for up to seven days. He was known to Ms Donegan.
Detectives are examining a shotgun in an effort to establish if it was the weapon used to inflict the single fatal wound.
Gardaí feared for Ms Donegan’s safety from the time she was reported missing on May 7th by her partner, who is the father of her 12-year-old child.
Ms Donegan, a drug user, was last seen at 8am on May 6th at her home in St Patrick’s Park, Celbridge. She was originally from Ballyfermot in west Dublin.
Searches have been carried out in recent weeks in Kildare and Dublin by gardaí trying to trace Ms Donegan.
One of those searches took place at a lock-up in a transport yard at Kilmactalway, Aylmer Rd, just outside Newcastle village on Tuesday at 5pm. Gardaí found Ms Donegan’s badly decomposed body in the boot of a silver grey 02 Saab estate car.
She is believed to have been killed about the time she was last seen.