Man (19) charged with murder of woman in Kerry

A teenager is due to appear in court today in connection with the murder of a 53-year-old woman at her home in north Kerry on Wednesday morning.

The 19-year-old man who was arrested by gardaí in the greater Listowel area on Wednesday afternoon will be charged with the murder of Susan Dunne.

Gardai in Listowel who are investigating the killing received instructions from the DPP tonight to charge the teenager with the murder of Ms Dunne at her home.

He was then charged with the offence at Listowel Garda station where he will be detained overnight. He will be brought before Killarney District Court at 10.30am tomorrow.

Gardaí formally upgraded their inquiry into the death of Ms Dunne to a murder inquiry following a postmortem by assistant State pathologist, Dr Margot Bolster.

The postmortem at Kerry General Hospital in Tralee this morning confirmed Ms Dunne had died a violent death after suffering a number of injuries.

Gardaí said they were not releasing the postmortem findings for operational reasons but it’s understood Ms Dunne died from blunt-force trauma to the head.

Garda sources confirmed to The Irish Times today that Garda technical experts had recovered a number of items from the murder scene which may have been used by the killer.

Among the items were a hatchet and a hammer which have both been sent for forensic examination by scientists at the State laboratory at Abbottstown in Co Dublin.

Ms Dunne’s body was found at the bungalow which she shared with her son, Patrick at Ballinageragh, Lixnaw about 12 kilometres from Listowel.

She was discovered with severe head injuries in a bedroom by a neighbour at around 10am on Wednesday morning and the emergency services and gardai were notified.

Ms Dunne, who was chairwoman of Kerry Autism Action had moved to Lixnaw about two years ago, having previously lived in Co Kildare.