Gardaí investigating the murder of Waterford woman Meg Walsh believe that they are making good progress in closing in on her killer and have not ruled out making an early arrest in the case.
According to a Garda source, investigators have made significant progress on a number of fronts in the past week, including locating evidence on where Ms Walsh was killed as well as where they believe her body was dumped in the River Suir.
Gardaí are confident that more advanced forensic tests on several items seized after searches by sniffer dogs from the UK could provide them with the necessary evidence to bring the investigation to a successful conclusion and apprehend Ms Walsh's killer.
They are still working through a large quantity of CCTV tapes obtained from commercial premises in Waterford but already they have located several sightings of Ms Walsh's silver Mitsubishi Carisma car after the last confirmed sighting of her alive at 6am on October 1st.
While gardaí are reluctant to comment on the exact locations of these sightings, they believe they are highly significant after cross-checking them with statements volunteered by people who had dealings with Ms Walsh in the hours before she disappeared.
"It's going quite well - there's a lot of work being done and while it may seem as though we haven't made any dramatic breakthrough this week, taking all developments together, we're very pleased with the progress we're making," said one senior source.
While Supt Dave Sheahan and Insp Pádraig Dunne of Waterford Garda station attended Ms Walsh's funeral Mass in her native Killavullen in north Cork yesterday, Garda searches, using specialist sniffer dogs brought in from the UK, continued in Waterford.
The specialist dog units continued with searches of the Ferrybank side of the River Suir where gardaí believe that Ms Walsh's killer disposed of her body sometime after killing her either on Sunday or possibly early Monday morning.
The sniffer dogs from Yorkshire and Wales are also being used by gardaí to try and locate the instrument, possibly a hammer or the blunt end of a hatchet, used by Ms Walsh's killer to bludgeon her to death in the vicious assault.
Ms Walsh's home at Ballinakill Downs remained cordoned off by gardaí yesterday as they continued to carry out technical examinations on the premises.
