Gardaí in Cork are expected to launch a murder investigation on Tuesday as they anticipate that a postmortem will confirm that human remains found in east Cork are those of a man whom they fear was abducted and killed last year.
Gardaí are still officially treating the disappearance of Kieran Quilligan (47) from Cork City last September as a missing persons investigation, even though the Garda inquiry has been given all the resources of a murder investigation, with a dedicated incident room set up in the Bridewell Garda station.
Garda sources said that Assistant State Pathologist, Dr Margot Bolster, may need to check dental records or DNA samples to formally confirm that the remains found in a ditch just off the Midleton to Whitegate road in east Cork are those of Mr Quilligan.
Dr Bolster is due to commence the postmortem on the remains at the mortuary at Cork University Hospital at around 10am on Tuesday. Undertakers on Monday evening removed the remains from the scene in east Cork where they were found around midday.
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Garda sources said that, once the identity of the deceased is confirmed, the course of their inquiry will be determined by what Dr Bolster finds at postmortem and whether or not her findings confirm, as they suspect, that the deceased was the victim of foul play and met a violent end.
The remains were found at the bottom of an excavated channel covered in scrub just at the side of the Midleton to Whitegate road, some three miles south of Saleen village and past Whitewell Cross and the turn off for Rostellan. They were found by a sniffer dog and his handlers who were searching for Mr Quilligan.
Senior gardaí, under Det Supt Mick Comyns, immediately drafted in the Cork City Divisional scenes of crime examiners. They cordoned off the area and began a preliminary examination in the hope that it may provide clues as to who dumped the body there.
Gardaí appointed a family liaison officer to assist the Quilligan family when Mr Quilligan was reported missing, and it is understood that the officer made contact with the family early on Monday afternoon to keep them informed of the latest events.
Mr Quilligan, who was originally from Bakers Road in Gurranebraher, was last seen alive on CCTV footage at St Finbarr’s Place, near St Fin Barre’s Cathedral, at around 9.15pm on September 1st. He had left his accommodation at Cork Simon’s Emergency Shelter on Anderson’s Quay at 8.30pm.
Gardaí have traced Mr Quilligan’s movements in the company of another man, from the Mahon area of Cork, across the city centre to French’s Quay and Proby’s Quay, where he is seen going up steps but fails to exit at the top, at Fort Street.
CCTV footage from this street and nearby Dean Street was examined and gardaí focused their investigation on whether Mr Quilligan was assaulted by a group of men and bundled into a car which left the area on to either Barrack Street or Gilabbey Street.
It is understood that gardaí are keeping an open mind on a motive for any assault and abduction. One line of inquiry that they are looking at is whether Mr Quilligan, who had a heroin addiction, may have fallen foul of a criminal gang.
During a court appearance in June when he was charged with a break-in at a cafe, Mr Quilligan told the court that he was on a methadone treatment programme, but gardaí suspect that he may have still been struggling with a heroin addiction at the time of his disappearance.
Mr Quilligan was in receipt of social welfare and failed to collect any payments due to him since his disappearance at the start of September. He also failed to keep a number of appointments at a methadone clinic where he used to receive the medication to treat his heroin addiction.
Detectives have spoken to the man who was last seen with Mr Quilligan and have taken a witness statement from him, as well as from staff at Cork Simon, who reported him missing on September 4th, and from others who are assisting them in their inquiry.
According to informed sources, a team of over 20 detectives based at the Bridewell Garda station took witness statements from up to 80 people over the first month or so of the investigation, with a smaller team of around 10 detectives continuing with inquiries over the Christmas period.
Gardaí examined hundreds of hours of CCTV footage from the city centre and suburbs, as well as the main arteries out of it. They also seized a number of mobile phones for examination and searched a number of houses in the Mahon and Blackrock areas.
It is understood that a car of interest to gardaí was seen leaving the city and heading along the N25 towards east Cork. This led to initial searches by the Cork City Divisional search team of two farms at Courtown in Little Island, about 10km east of the city, on September 22nd.
The Garda searches continued for several days and included a search of a number of slurry tanks on the two farms by a team of divers. The search found no trace of Mr Quilligan and gardaí began looking instead at the possibility that his body may been dumped in the Rostellan area.
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