Further tests are to be carried out on the body of a young woman who died yesterday, a week after being found seriously injured on a roadside near Drogheda.
Breda Ryan (20) was discovered unconscious with serious head bruising and chest injuries close to a popular beauty spot on the banks of the River Boyne.
State Pathologist Marie Cassidy carried out a post-mortem examination yesterday afternoon after the young mother of a one-month-old girl died without regaining consciousness at Beaumont Hospital.
Results of the tests will not be released until further examinations are carried out during the week. Gardai are treating the death as suspicious and have completely ruled out an initial possibility of a hit-and-run collision.
"It definitely wasn't a hit and run. The injuries would have been completely different," said Inspector Tom Fox, of Drogheda Garda Station.
"It will be at least Tuesday before we know anything from the test results. At the moment we are not ruling anything in, not ruling anything out."
He said the investigation will now be upgraded since the woman's death.
An incident room will be set up tomorrow and a team appointed to the case. While detectives are keeping an open mind, one line of inquiry is that Ms Ryan was assaulted and dumped from a car near a scenic spot popular with anglers on the Louth/Meath border known as Curley's Hole.
A passing motorist discovered the woman unconscious shortly after 6am last Friday, July 28, just two miles from her home in the Cedarfield area of Drogheda.
She was taken to Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, in the Co Louth town, but later moved to Beaumont Hospital in Dublin because of the severity of her injuries.
Gardai have appealed for anyone with information to get in touch.
PA