MAN WITH JOANNE’S BODY IN WARDROBE JUMPS OUT WINDOW
As investigating gardaí arrive at flat in search of missing woman...
JUST seconds before gardaí found the body of a missing woman in a man’s wardrobe, he ran to the window of his flat, leapt 30ft to the ground and slit one of his wrists. Before he was taken away on a stretcher, the man admitted killing Joanne Lee, 38, who had been missing since Tuesday, sources say.
‘He has broken down, He has admitted killing her. It was a terrible scene for the officers to find the poor dead woman’s remains stuffed in a wardrobe. It is a shocking case,’ said a senior source.
Last night her devastated uncle, John Curry, wept and said: ‘The whole family
is taken apart. The soul is taken out of us. You just don’t know what came out of this or why this happened.’
He said he heard about the killing while visiting Ms Lee’s mother in Ashbourne, Co. Meath, where the family had gathered.
‘All I can say is why, why, why, why? This is a beautiful girl, so young and so pretty, away from us all. Just devastated,’ he said.
Ms Lee, 38, from Coolock in north Dublin went missing on Tuesday afternoon after driving from her parents’ home in Ashbourne. Gardaí put out a missing persons appeal on Wednesday.
It is understood her family had directed officers to the chief suspect as relations between Ms Lee and this man had become strained.
When gardaí entered a flat in Ranelagh, south Dublin, at 3.45pm yesterday, the suspect threw himself more than 30ft from the third floor and, while on the ground, took out a Stanley blade and cut his wrist. Gardaí took the knife from him and stopped the bleeding.
Inside a wardrobe in the flat officers found Ms Lee’s body wrapped tightly in sleeping bags and covered in plastic. A plastic bag covered her head.
They believe she may have been killed elsewhere and carried into the flat. Officers believe she may have been strangled, a source said last night. But the source stressed that the State pathologist had yet to examine the body.
The man, who was known to Ms Lee, was taken from the scene on a stretcher after the incident. His head was in a cast and he appeared to have a foot injury, neighbours said.
The suspect allegedly said: ‘I had to kill her’ as he was being taken into custody. He was last night being questioned after being medically attended to.
Gardaí had found Ms Lee’s car outside a property converted into flats on Ranelagh Road on Wednesday night, according to neighbours. Detectives decided to knock on every door in the building and left notes for those who did not answer, appealling for information about Ms Lee.
One Mauritian resident of the
‘She may have been strangled’
building said he contacted the gardaí as soon as he saw the note, telling them he did not know the woman.
A Croatian man and Romanian woman living in another apartment, and an American woman living alone, also said they told gardaí that they did not know the woman.
Gardaí narrowed the information down to one apartment in the building and discovered that the Irish resident was known to Ms Lee. Several of her relatives turned up at the house yesterday, pleading with gardaí to step up the investigation.
When officers entered the flat at 3.45pm yesterday, the suspect ran to the window, jumped more than 30ft to the ground and slashed one of wrists. He was arrested seconds later by gardaí downstairs.
Garda sources said there was a large Rottweiler in the apartment when the property was raided. The apartment was not rented by the man but he had access to it.
Neighbours say the suspect, who moved in in recent months, was generally polite and eager to please. One American resident of the building said she asked about litter in the garden in recent days and said the man was very apologetic and said he would sort it out. ‘It was like he was nervous and wanted to resolve it as soon as possible,’ she said.
Gardaí told everyone in the building to leave last night while they conducted a forensic examination. They escorted them to a city-centre hotel, paid for the rooms, and sealed off the house with tape.
Residents could be seen leaving with their luggage, escorted by officers. ‘We haven’t been told when we can return so we will wait,’ the Romanian woman said.
Ms Lee’s uncle, John Curry, said the family felt that something was wrong on Tuesday.
‘We had a feeling something was up. We couldn’t put it together and we were searching everywhere,’ he said.
It recent times Ms Lee, who was estranged from her husband, had been living in Mountjoy in Dublin before moving in with her parents in Ashbourne.
She was known as an animal lover who had several dogs and a cat named Raven.
Photographs on Facebook show her walking through a field of long grass in Meath with her dogs and several photos of her cat. Ms Lee also enjoyed keeping fit and hiking and was attached to several left- wing and secular causes. Her parents had become concerned about her in recent weeks.