NOEL Lindsay had been in work for a hour when, at around 8 a.m yesterday, he decided to walk back up the short lane to the shops on The Rise, and buy a newspaper.
"I must have walked by it on my way in to work, but I noticed it on my way out to get the paper. A woman's body.
"She was in her underwear and lying on the ground with her face towards the wall and her back towards the lane. I just had a glance. I knew by looking at her she was dead.
The Rise is a quiet suburban street at the Mobhi Road end of Griffith Avenue, in Glasnevin, Dublin. There is a grocery shop, a butcher's and a hairdresser's, and beside this small cluster of shops there is a cul de sac and lane way, called Woodpark, where builders have just completed a terrace of three townhouses.
Between the unoccupied houses and The Rise, in a small paved area, Noel Lindsay found the body between a yellow skip and two loaded pallets.
"She was blue in the face, the colour of death." Noel raised the alarm, and he and some of the men from three small businesses at the end of the lane covered the woman's body.
The men noticed how her face and scalp were purple or blue, and how there were marks on her neck. They found no sign of the rest of her clothing.
One man described the body as being "in the foetal position".
Gardai sealed off the area and left the body untouched while awaiting the arrival of the Chief State Pathologist, Prof John Harbison.
A woman had been reported missing from a house in Griffith Avenue, near The Rise, since 1.10 a.m. yesterday.
Mrs Patricia Murphy (34), who was living with her husband David, and their four children in a rented house in Griffith Avenue, had not been seen since she left work at 10.30 a.m. on Monday.
Mrs Murphy had started a new job on Saturday at Lismore House, a bed and breakfast on Upper Drumcondra Road, about 15 minutes' walk from her home. She had worked on Monday from 8 a.m. until 10.30 a.m. when she left.
"She was on her own, as happy as Larry. There was not a bother on her," Ms Geraldine Lynch, the housekeeper who hired her, said.
"She gave no indication there was anything wrong. She was very happy, very jolly, a young woman really into her four kids."
At about 11 a.m. yesterday a member of staff from Lismore House made a provisional identification of the body found at Woodpark, and gardai broke the news to Mr David Murphy.
Gardai also contacted the Murphys neighbour.
"She was a beautiful, beautiful person", the woman said of Mrs Murphy. "She was friendly, outgoing, soft spoken, She wouldn't do you a bad turn.
The woman, who did not to be named, said she had become very friendly with Mr and Mrs Murphy and their children since they moved in 18 months earlier. Mr Murphy had done a lot of work around her house, and the two couples had taken turns looking after each other's children.
Mrs Murphy had given birth to her youngest child, Amy, in January. The couple's other children are David (3), Aaron (6) and, Jamie, a girl, who is eight and recently made her First Communion.
The neighbour said the Murphys had lived for a time in the dead woman's native Kilrush, in Co Clare, but they had not settled and had come to Dublin, "to make ago of it".
Mr Murphy, a native of Phibsborough, is a qualified electrician and is self employed.
"She loved speed walking," the neighbour said of Mrs Murphy. "She kept fit. She often said that when I got a pair of runners we would do speed walking and she'd teach me the tricks of the trade."
Like the neighbour who had lost a friend of 18 months, Ms Geraldine Lynch, who had known Patricia Murphy for only three days, could not stop crying two hours after being told the news.
"She was a lovely, bubbly bright person. She had boundless energy. You know when you meet someone you either click or you don't. Well, we clicked."
Gardai investigating the murder said they were following no definite line of inquiry. They have not located Mrs Murphy's missing clothes ski pants, a black top and a multi coloured jacket. Workmen have told them that the body was not in Woodpark lane late on Monday evening when they were going home.
Anyone who noticed anything suspicious in the Griffith Avenue area yesterday or on Monday, or around The Rise, is asked to telephone the incident room at Whitehall Garda station on (01) 837-4613, or the Garda confidential telephone line, at 1800-666111.
