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A virtual inquest into the death of a French-Irish teenager, whose body was found near a Malaysian jungle resort where she vanished while on holiday, has ended with a verdict due within a month.
Malaysian coroner Maimoonah Aid is due to make a ruling on December 31st or January 4th. Since August, a total of 49 witnesses have given evidence over 24 days via video conferencing due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Nora Anne Quoirin disappeared from her family's cottage at the Dusun eco-resort in southern Negeri Sembilan state on August 4th, 2019, a day after they arrived for a holiday. After a massive search, her naked body was found on August 13th beside a stream on a palm oil estate about 2.5km from the resort.
Nora was only wearing her underwear when she went missing but her body was found naked. It was unclear what happened to her underwear, but police told the inquest the postmortem showed no sign she was sexually assaulted. Police also ruled out any criminal activity and said there was no indication Nora had been abducted.
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Police believe she climbed out of a window on her own. But Nora’s parents said she was likely to have been kidnapped because she had mental and physical disabilities and would not have wandered off on her own.
A British pathologist who performed a second postmortem on Nora’s body in the UK said, while giving evidence, that he agreed with the Malaysian findings that she died of intestinal bleeding due to starvation and stress. However, he said he could not fully rule out sexual assault due to severe body decomposition.
The Quoirin family has sued the resort owner for alleged negligence. They said in their lawsuit that there was no security at the resort and that the window had a broken latch and was found ajar the morning Nora disappeared. – AP