Irish girl’s body found, family mourn ‘unbearable’ loss
She went missing in Malaysia on Aug 4, while on holiday with family
SEREMBAN: Malaysian authorities yesterday began a post-mortem examination on the body of an Irish teen, found dead after she disappeared from a resort.
The findings were initially expected at 5pm, and then at 8pm, before officials said they would be announced only tomorrow.
The unclothed body of 15-year-old Nora Quoirin was discovered on Tuesday in a ravine in dense rainforest after a 10-day hunt involving hundreds of people, helicopters and sniffer dogs.
She went missing from the Dusun Resort, not far from Kuala Lumpur, on Aug 4, a day after checking in for a holiday with her London-based family.
Her family believed the teen, who had learning difficulties, had been abducted but police classified her disappearance as a missing person case.
Her body was airlifted by a helicopter out of the ravine, which is about 2.5km from the resort, transported to hospital and identified by her relatives.
Her relatives said the schoolgirl was "at the heart of our family", in a statement released by The Lucie Blackman Trust, a UK charity that supports relatives of British people missing overseas.
"She is the truest, most precious girl and we love her infinitely. The cruelty of her being taken away is unbearable. Our hearts are broken. We will always love our Nora."
After meeting the girl's parents, family lawyer Sankara N. Nair said they hoped "the authorities will investigate the death of their loving daughter thoroughly and explore all angles that caused her death".
The body was found unclothed but authorities have not said if there were any signs of injury.
Police, who are not ruling out criminal elements in the case, have questioned witnesses and are investigating accounts of a truck heard early on the morning the girl disappeared.
A group of volunteers who were part of the search and rescue team found the body after being tipped off by a member of the public.
Mr Sean Yeap, one of the volunteers who found the body told the MailOnline: "It looked like she was sleeping. Her head was resting on her hands. But we all knew she was dead," he told the MailOnline.
"It was very sad and two women in the group did not want to come close and they started crying."
The body was discovered in the official search zone, in an area that the team had previously covered.
On Monday, the family had offered a RM50,000 (S$16,560) reward, donated by a Belfast business, for information that could lead to her return.
And at the weekend, her mother Meabh fought back tears as she made an emotional speech thanking the search team, with the girl's French father Sebastien by her side.
The 5ha resort where the teenager disappeared is next to a patch of thick jungle, in the foothills of a mountain range.
Her family had said it was extremely unlikely the reserved youngster would have wandered off on her own.
She had a condition known as holoprosencephaly, where the brain fails to develop normally, had limited verbal communication and could write only a few words. She attended a school for young people with learning and communication difficulties. - AFP, THE STAR
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