Grieving family and friends of a man who was murdered in a flat gathered to remember him as gardai continue to hunt his killer.
Tony Dempsey, 28, was beaten to death in a ground floor property of Kevin Barry House, Coleraine Street in Dublin’s north inner city.
His body lay there decomposing for at least a week before gardai responded to complaints of the smell coming from the flat before they made the grim discovery last Monday evening.
Read more: Murder probe launched after body of man in his 20s found in Dublin city flat
On Thursday, grieving relatives and friends of Dempsey released balloons at the complex at 6pm, chanting his name to honour his memory.
Videos of the gathering were posted on social media, with his cousin saying: “Life’s so unfair.”
Dempsey’s family are demanding justice as gardai continue to probe the killing. Officers have interviewed a number of people that passed through the flat while Dempsey’s body lay decomposing but no arrests have been made yet.
Investigators believe that he may have been the victim of a beating over a drug debt incurred by a woman known to him but they continue to follow other lines of inquiry too.
The Peter McVerry Trust, who managed the flat, has confirmed an internal review is under way following Dempsey’s death.
He did not live there nor was he a client of the charity. A tenant was accommodated in the property around 18 months ago but it began to “break down” in recent months, the McVerry Trust said. The tenant placed in the property “was struggling to manage the front door and individuals, who had no interest in the property or the tenant’s recovery, were gaining entry to and using theproperty”.
Furious residents had been raising concerns about this particular flat for over a year, branding it a “drugs den” as addicts streamed in and out of it.
And in a fresh statement this week, it said: “There is an internal case review under way and we will not be commenting further at this stage.”
Earlier in the week, its CEO Pat Doyle told how the McVerry Trust staff visited the property daily, including over the weekend, and they had no indication or evidence that someone was deceased at the property or in the vicinity.
But locals have slammed this response, with one saying: “It’s not good enough. People could smell the stench for days, some thought it was a dead rat.
“So how did they inspect that apartment and not realise there was a dead body in there?”
Dempsey was originally from New Road in Inchicore, Dublin and was not a resident of the flat his body was in.
He had done various stints behind bars and had a long rap sheet of at least 50 convictions including 22 for road traffic offences, and others for theft, drugs, criminal damage and possession of knives and firearms.
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