The 36-year-old Irish woman who was found strangled to death at a hotel in a Spanish holiday resort has been named and pictured for the first time.
Kirsty Ward from Dublin was found deceased at a hotel in the popular holiday hotspot Salou, 70 miles south of Barcelona, on Sunday night last week. According to one report, a worker at the hotel where the horror incident occurred was said to have found the victim in one of the hotel corridors attempting to escape from her suspected killer.
Her suspected killer, a 30-year-old Irish tourist who was reportedly her boyfriend, has since been arrested. The suspect has not been named by Spanish authorities.
The couple were reportedly seen arguing before Kirsty was found dead, and according to sources quoted by the respected Catalan newspaper El Periodico, had spent “hours in a state of anger”. He was found with a “self-inflicted” wrist wound next to the body of his deceased partner Kirsty, who was reportedly strangled with a ligature, in a corridor outside their second-floor room at the adult-only four-star Magnolia Hotel.
Read more: Irish woman found dead in hotel in Spain as man arrested on suspicion of murder
Initially held on Sunday night under police guard at Joan XXIII Hospital in the city of Tarragona, he was then transferred to a city police HQ where he was held for two nights. The suspect was subsequently remanded to prison on Wednesday by an investigating magistrate after a court hearing, where he was formally declared an ‘investigado’, which means a person under investigation.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs said that they were liaising with Kirsty’s family and asked for privacy for them.
They said: “The Department of Foreign Affairs are liaising with the family of mother of one Kirsty Ward from Dublin. The family will not be making any further comment or statements and ask for privacy during this distressing time.”
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