Gardaí have arrested a man for questioning about the murder of a 31-year-old mother of two who was found unresponsive with a stab wound in her flat in Mallow last Friday morning.
The 42-year-old man was arrested in Mallow on Tuesday afternoon and taken to Mallow Garda station for questioning about the murder of Paula Canty at a flat on Bridewell Lane in the north Co Cork town.
The suspect was arrested by investigating detectives shortly after arriving at Mallow Railway Station at 3pm.
He is being detained under section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act 1984 which allows gardaí detain suspects for up to 24 hours.
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It is believed that the man was known to Ms Canty, a native of Kinsale who had been living at a top floor flat at the Belfry on Bridewell Lane in Mallow for several months.
Detectives are satisfied following the receipt of postmortem results that Ms Canty was stabbed to death in her flat in Mallow sometime in the early hours of Friday morning.
The emergency services were only alerted to the incident at 10.30am when a male caller rang into say a woman had slashed her wrists in the top floor flat in the Belfry.
When they arrived at the flat, they found Ms Canty unresponsive after suffering a stab wound to the upper body but showing no signs of having slashed her wrists as reported by the caller.
A postmortem examination by Assistant State Pathologist, Margot Bolster showed that the fatal stab wound was not self-inflicted.
Up to 40 officers including both detectives and uniformed police are involved in the investigation which is being co-ordinated from an Incident Room at Mallow Garda station.
Gardaí have renewed their appeal to the public for assistance, saying they want to speak to any witnesses or anyone with camera footage, including dashcam recordings from Bridewell Lane.
They are especially keen to speak to anyone with footage from the area between 9pm on Thursday and 10am on Friday and they can be contacted at Mallow Garda station on 022 31450.
Funeral arrangements have yet to be announced for Ms Canty, who is survived by her mother, Sinead, her daughters, Alyisha and Aoibhe and her siblings, Darragh, Donna, Latoya, David and Rianna.
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