A close friend of a woman found dead in her home has claimed the suspect told her he had been “dreaming” and thought he may have killed her.
Ioana Mihaela, 30, originally from Romania, was discovered dead in her bed in an apartment in Riverwalk Court, Ratoath, Co Meath, on Saturday evening. Gardai are understood to be investigating whether she was killed by a man known to her - who last night remained under arrest over her death.
And speaking to this paper last night, Roxana Devan, a friend of the victim, told how she immediately raised the alarm - calling gardai to the scene after a chilling phone call she said she had on Saturday.
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She says she saw Ioana the night before - gifting her a coffee machine to celebrate the fact she had just moved into the apartment the previous weekend.
Roxana said: “When I left her everything was fine. On Saturday then all of a sudden her family were ringing me and were concerned about her.
“They were asking me to ring an ambulance because apparently [they had been told] she was unconscious.
“So I rang the ambulance straight away because they were very concerned. I then tried to ring him [the suspect] but I got no answer.
“I rang again and got him the second time and I said what the hell is going on? What happened?”
Roxana said the man, who has since been arrested, was initially not answering her questions. She added: “I said ‘listen this is serious, and if you did something to her the ambulance is on the way, so what’s going on, can I talk to her?’
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“He said no you can’t talk to her because she’s dead. I said ‘oh my God did you kill her’.”
Roxana says the man then told her that he was dreaming and he thought he may have killed her.
Roxana added: “He said I don’t know, I think I killed her, but I was dreaming. I had a dream, I was dreaming and when I woke up I woke up next to her, she was dead.”
Roxana says she then hung up and called gardai at around 5:41pm on Saturday evening. She then got into a car with her cousin and went to the scene.
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Roxana said: “I live in Dublin 15 and my cousin came with me. We drove over and by the time we arrived there the guards and ambulance was there.
“I asked was she OK and I was told no, that she was dead.” Roxana says she has since told investigating gardai all of this information, and went to the garda station to speak to them about it for several hours.
Roxana said she will have to attend the morgue to formally identify her friend.
Paying tribute to Ioana, Roxana said she was a kind-hearted person who worked in security, and had her whole life ahead of her. She said: “I know she was a very good person, a very kind and calm person.
“She was a security officer. She was working at the same company I used to work in and went on to another one. She was just a very kind person. I really have no words about what happened to her. Why kill her? What was the reason? We are just all shocked.
“The day before I was standing at the table drinking coffee with her, and now she’s gone.”
Ioana’s grieving sister Tocoian Estera said what she and her family are going through is hell.
She said: “You must realise it’s very hard right now. We still don’t know exactly what happened.”
But she said she wanted to pay tribute to her sister, passing on a photo of her to this paper and describing her as a person who was full of life. Tocoian said: “She was such a cheerful and optimistic person.”
Ms Estera said her sister worked in security and had been living in Ireland for the past three years. In a social media post she added: “Smooth road to heaven, my beautiful sister, you left behind a huge pain.”
Roxana also paid tribute on social media, writing: “Oh good soul. You left among the living and we can’t stop crying.
The victim and her partner had only moved into her first-floor apartment in Riverwalk Court in Ratoath last weekend, locals said.
A man known to her, who is in his 30s, was under arrest and detained by gardai yesterday.
It is understood gardai are investigating her death as a fatal assault.
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