Adrian Bestea loved flowers. Growing up in Timisoara, western Romania, he would bring a bunch home to his mother almost every day. When money was short he would pick wild flowers or weeds in the city parks and present them.
Even when he moved to Dublin, 2,000 miles away, he did not change. "Every time he phoned he would become excited as he told me about the flowers he had bought that week," said his mother, Mariana Moraru.
In photographs he sent home there was always one, sometimes two, bunches in his apartment, their bright colours in sharp contrast to the down-at-heel, poorly furnished flats which house the majority of Ireland's asylum-seekers.
Now two years after Adrian (21) went to Dublin, Ms Moraru, is careful not to let the pictures out of her sight. Last weekend, gardai phoned and said her son had been murdered, pushed into a suitcase and dumped in Dublin's Royal Canal.
"He was my only child and now I have no motivation for life, no motivation to keep living," she said.
Ms Moraru remembers a loving son. "Adrian was a very good child. Affectionate, attentive, friendly. When he was a little boy I always told him I love your little and beautiful eyes. I was sick recently when he phoned, he was worried about me and said `mother I love your little and beautiful eyes'."
Adrian Bestea was close to his parents. He had a relatively comfortable life in Romania and didn't work. In a country where the average salary is $100 a month he was better off than most.
His mother remarried, so he had the family apartment to himself, which he kept full of carnations, his favourite flower. His parents bought him a second hand Volkswagen Golf. But for Adrian Bestea a comfortable life in Timisoara was not enough. All his friends were working across Europe. "They sent out word, they had found a place where you could earn $2,000 a month working in construction without any hassle from the authorities," said Ms Moraru. The news prompted 17 young Timisoarans, living across Europe to head for Dublin. Adrian's mother begged him not to go. "I told him you have everything here. He had everything and still he left." But Adrian wanted to be with his friends and earn money. "He said he wanted to know what freedom was. We argued about it but he said no matter what you will give me here I need to go myself also and see the world."
Adrian was the last of his friends to arrive in Ireland. The journey was not without its problems. Raul S, one of Adrian's oldest childhood friends, who asked for his full name not to be used, was already in Dublin.
"He failed in his first effort and was deported to Hungary," said Raul.
Back home, a two-week stint at a Shell filling station convinced immigration officers he had a steady job. They gave him a Schengen visa which allowed him to travel to a number of European countries but not Ireland. However, they did not interest Adrian.
"For us Ireland was the Promised Land. We went because we had heard asylum-seekers get work permits there," said Raul.
Adrian made his way to Belgium. "After six months he managed to buy a forged Czech passport. He used it and this time he got in. It was 1999 and he was among the last of the boys to arrive in Ireland. We were all there, that's why he was so keen." Detectives from the Garda National Immigration Bureau say forged and false documents are often used by asylum-seekers and illegal immigrants to enter the Republic. False EU identity documents are used by many illegal workers to get an RSI number. Many work under a name different to the identity they used to enter the State. Adrian used his real name to claim refugee status, according to gardai.
When Adrian arrived in Ireland, Raul met him and helped him with the welfare system and Department of Justice. He was placed in a hotel for the first few weeks. It was there he met Marina, a Russian woman, who later became his girlfriend. Gardai want to question the woman they have not yet traced. According to Adrian's mother, her son was in love.
"He dated her for over a year. She was eight years older than him. In his last phone call on July 3rd he told me he was very happy, was going to marry Marina and was about to buy the rings," she said.
"Adrian worked with some other Romanians from Oradea [a town north of Timisoara] making £320 a week before overtime. He didn't send any money home and saved everything. You don't have to spend very much money in Ireland. This might have been a reason to kill him," said Raul.
Adrian's application for refugee status had been rejected and he was appealing this decision while working illegally in construction.
Romanians are the second largest national category of asylum-seekers in Ireland, after Nigerians. They account for about 13 per cent of the 4,769 asylum claims lodged this year until the end of June. The rate of recognition of Romanians as refugees fleeing persecution is very low.
Adrian had lived in apartments in Mountjoy Square and Sherrard Street in the north inner city as well as Sandymount in south Dublin. According to his mother, he had bought a classic car.
His death and the unusual means used to dispose of his body has shocked the estimated 10,000-strong Romanian community in Ireland.
Like many of them, Adrian frequented the Transylvania Romanian Tavern on Henrietta Place off North King Street, Dublin, which serves tasty home-style cooking in a traditional setting. He socialised in bars including Zanzibar in Dublin city centre.
Mr Sorin Costica, from the Romanian community of Ireland, said a collection was taken up at the Orthodox church used by Romanians in Dublin's north inner city and it would be presented to Adrian's mother. Mr Costica, who did not know Adrian, said the Romanian community has reacted to the murder with "sadness and confusion". "It's sad to hear the newspapers and radio saying that it was an Eastern European-style crime. It's just putting a stamp on people again, making a difference between people," he said. Back in Timisoara, Dani G, who also asked that his full name not be used, said he knew Adrian in Dublin.
"I came back on May 18th. I met Adrian about three weeks earlier in the Temple Bar pub in Dublin. He was alone. I told him I was going back to Romania and he said he never thought of going back home. He was so happy. It was a normal pub evening. He showed no signs of tension."
Three months later Adrian was dead. His mother arrived in Dublin on Thursday night to help the Garda formally identify the body by giving blood for a DNA test. Yesterday she attended a candle-lit religious service on the bank of the canal where Adrian's body was found last month. The service was conducted by a Romanian priest, Father Ireneu Craciun from the Greek Orthodox Church in Arbour Hill, Dublin.
Ms Moraru said she was bringing to Ireland her memories, photographs and the hope that Adrian's killers will be found.
"I have all the trust in the Irish authorities that they will find who killed my child and justice will be done," she said.