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Irish Mirror
Irish Mirror
National
John Hand

Gardai seize bottle bank overlooked by CCTV close to Ashling Murphy murder scene

A bottle bank overlooked by CCTV has been removed from a car park just over a kilometre away from where Ashling Murphy was murdered.

Eight containers were sealed off on Sunday night by gardai, who preserved the area on the Daingean road, in Tullamore, Offaly until after 4pm on Monday.

A lorry arrived and took just one away ahead of investigators searching it as they try and gather more evidence after last Wednesday's murder of 23-year-old Ashling.

Gardai are looking for any evidence which may assist the major inquiry.

The car park where the bottle bank is on the opposite side of the canal to a monument for Fiona Pender, the 25-year-old from Tullamore who went missing while seven months pregnant in 1996.

A pod being removed after Gardai sealed of a bottle bank in Whitehall car park on the Daingean Road, Tullamore. (Mick ONeill)

Just over a kilometre away, the scene where Ashling was so brutally attacked remains sealed off.

Detectives are waiting for medics to give the go-ahead to question a suspect who is in a Dublin hospital being treated for self-inflicted wounds since last Thursday.

Officers believe the man was given a lift from Tullamore in Offaly to the capital on Wednesday, the day primary school teacher Ashling was killed.

He then is understood to have stayed at a house with extended family in South Dublin, before he was brought to hospital with his wounds the following day.

Gardai have seized two vehicles linked to the man, one in Tullamore and one in Dublin, which will be forensically examined over the coming days.

It comes after a house outside Tullamore was searched on Friday and Saturday and remained sealed off last night.

The home he is believed to have stayed in on Wednesday night in South Dublin has also been raided.

Detectives believe DNA from the new suspect will be crucial in the probe.

Brave Ashling, 23, fought in vain for her life and gardai now have recovered "key" forensic evidence.

DNA was also taken murder from the distinctive Falcon Storm bike, which a man was seen on in the town before the murder.

On Sunday, Ashling's heartbroken family were escorted to the scene and walked along the canal to where her life was so brutally taken.

Dad Ray along with mum Kathleen, sister Amy and brother Cathal were there for about 10 minutes before they went back up to a jeep and were brought to their family home in Blueball, around 10 minutes away from Tullamore town.

Her funeral mass takes place tomorrow at St Brigid's in Mountbolus, which will also be streamed live.

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