Man linked to death
Victim and alleged killer shared apartment at resort
INVESTIGATORS believe a 71-year-old woman found dead in her Trinity Beach apartment had been there for days before her death was reported.
Police have charged a 60year-old man with murder after finding the woman’s body in a bedroom at the Coral Sands Beachfront Resort on Moore St about 7.30am on Saturday.
Officer in charge of Cairns CIB, detective Senior Sergeant Ed Kinbacher, said the man and woman were permanent residents at the resort.
He did not believe they were romantically linked.
“These were people who just shared a unit together,” he said.
Public details of the alleged murder remain slim with police launching an in-depth forensics examination to determine both the cause and time of death.
Sen-Sgt Kinbacher said it was believed the body had been there for a number of days but “the length of time is yet to be established”.
Her alleged killer was arrested at the scene. “There’s a male in custody and he will remain in custody over the next couple of days, I believe, as we unfold our in- quiries,” he said.
A major incident room has been established to co-ordinate the investigation.
Sen-Sgt Kinbacher said it had been a busy Easter weekend for Cairns police officers with two unrelated suspicious deaths to investigate.
“There’s been an unusual spate of potentially violencerelated deaths,” he said.
“These events arise from time to time.
“We’ve had a relatively quiet period.”
He did not believe the tragedies were symptomatic of any larger social problem currently at play across the region.
“This is just a cluster of unfortunate events occurring close together,” he said. “They are unrelated. “It’s simply a statistical aberration they are occurring together.”
“I don’t think anything more sinister than that can be inferred.”