Gardaí are continuing to trawl recent missing persons reports in an effort to establish the identity of a woman whose badly decomposed remains were discovered in Kilkenny on Friday. Conor Lally reports.
Officers are hoping her fingerprints will help them establish her identity.
The remains were discovered by a woman out walking her dog on the bank of the River Pil near Piltown, south Co Kilkenny, just before midday.
The body is believed to have been there for several weeks and possibly up to a month.
It had been wrapped in black plastic bags and was found when a foot was seen protruding from the bag. The State Pathologist, Prof Marie Cassidy, carried out a preliminary examination at the scene on Friday followed by a full post-mortem at Waterford Regional Hospital.
While the results of that post-mortem have not been released, gardaí have confirmed that the victim "died a very violent death".
A full-scale murder investigation is now under way at Clonmel Garda station. Local officers are being assisted by gardaí from the Garda National Immigration Bureau and the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation.
One Garda source told The Irish Times the woman's head had become detached from her body. However, gardaí have not yet determined if this occurred during the attack which killed her or because of decomposition.
Gardaí believe injuries on her body are consistent with a serious attack before she died.
Gardaí are following several lines of inquiry but have not established her identity. They believe the woman is west African and have identified a number of possible identities from missing persons reports.
It is hoped a set of fingerprints taken from the remains will reveal her identity.
If the woman was an asylum-seeker her fingerprints would have been taken during her asylum application.