Girl held as police probe death riddle of Kelsey, 19
POLICE have launched a murder inquiry after a girl was found dead in a flat in a Yorkshire village.
Kelsey Womersley, 19, died in the early hours of Friday after an ambulance was called to an address in Birstall, West Yorkshire.
Paramedics alerted police, who arrested four people on suspicion of murder. Officers were last night continuing to quiz a 17-year-old girl, but released two men, aged 20 and 19, and a 23-year-old woman without further action.
Kelsey’s family yesterday left balloons, flowers and cards outside the block of flats where she died. One card, signed ‘Dad and Sarah’, read: ‘Always in our hearts.’ Another said: ‘To a special granddaughter. Love always. Nanna.’
Friends of Kelsey, who is understood to have been training for a role in childcare and who would have turned 20 next month, took to Facebook to pay tribute. Bethany Purdy wrote: ‘Still cannot believe this. Why did it have to happen to such a nice girl?’
Another post read: ‘You was one in a million, you always had a heart of gold, always knew how to make us smile.’
Local Labour MP Tracy Brabin described Kelsey’s death as ‘absolutely devastating news’ and locals in Birstall, which is six miles outside Leeds, spoke of their shock.
As a police car remained parked outside the flat located in a block of maisonettes down a country lane, a neighbour described how he was woken by police knocking on the door.
‘I could see a lot of people were at the flat. There were at least five girls and boys,’ said the neighbour, who asked not to be named. ‘I did not hear any music and I don’t think there was a party. I could not say for certain if the girl who died lived there or not.’
Detective Superintendent Jim Griffiths, from the homicide and major inquiry team at West Yorkshire Police, said yesterday: ‘We are continuing to investigate the circumstances of what took place in the property and the precise cause of Kelsey’s death.’