Sinead Kelly, the young prostitute stabbed to death on Grand Canal bank, was raped and badly beaten in another attack in the same area two months ago, it has emerged.
Ms Kelly (21), who came from a respectable family background and grew up in Santry in north Dublin, became a prostitute some two years ago to finance her heroin addiction. She had been living in a flat in St Teresa's Gardens in south inner Dublin in recent times.
She was known to gardai as one of a group of up to 220 women who operate as prostitutes in the area from Grand Canal to Fitzwilliam Square.
She had worked a "patch" on Herbert Place near the Baggot Street Bridge and went with men who approached her to have brief sex behind trees on the canal bank. She was previously a street prostitute in the Benburb Street area on the north side of the Liffey.
She had been operating as a prostitute on Sunday evening, dressed in jeans, a light-coloured top and yellow runners near the gates leading down to the tow path on the canal. At about 1.50 a.m. yesterday, people living in Percy Place, which backs on to the south side of the canal, heard screaming and called gardai.
Officers from Harcourt Place arrived and found Ms Kelly on the bank. She had been stabbed several times in a frenzied attack and was dead by the time the officers arrived.
Gardai had not identified any likely suspect by last evening and are concerned that the man might carry out further attacks. There was no evidence to connect the murder with a serious assault on another young prostitute in the same area on Saturday night. In that attack the woman had both her wrists broken.
The senior investigating officer, Supt P.J. Browne, said last night a young man with tightly cropped black hair wearing dark clothes, possibly a black T-shirt, was seen emerging from the canal bank gates at around this time. Gardai wish to identify this man urgently, Supt Browne said.
He said a stockier, older man was also seen on the bridge at roughly the same time and the younger man was seen to break into a run as he passed this man. A red taxi was also seen at about the same time on the bridge.
Supt Browne said gardai at Harcourt Terrace Station wished to speak to anyone in the Grand Canal-Baggot Street area between midnight and 1.30 a.m. yesterday. All responses would be treated in strict confidence, he added. He asked anyone with information to contact the incident room (telephone 676 3481).