Woman stabbed to death in bathroom

A WOMAN stabbed to death in the bathroom of her Carlow home yesterday has been named as Ciara Campbell. It is understood her killer remains alive despite injuring himself.

Ms Campbell, aged 22, was an unmarried mother of a four-year-old son, Jamie. He was taken to St Luke’s Hospital and later released. Last night he was being cared for by relatives.

Originally from the North, Ms Campbell was renting the terrace house in the small cul-de-sac of Ardmore Gardens where she was killed.

She had broken up with her boyfriend last week and worked part-time in a local chain store.

A 23-year-old man who was at the house when emergency services arrived was taken to St Luke’s Hospital in Kilkenny where he is being treated for minor injuries.

Last night her friend, Alice Dalton, from Athy, was the sixth person to lay flowers at the scene. She said Ms Campbell was a good friend.

“She was a lovely person, I have known her for two years. She was mad about her son Jamie and was looking after him. I really don’t know much about what happened, only small things I have been hearing from different people,” she said.

Ms Campbell’s body was found with multiple stab wounds in the upstairs bathroom of the two-storey terraced house .

The discovery was made after a local man, who was in the house at the time, dialled 999. The call came shortly before 1.30pm yesterday.

The victim was pronounced dead at the scene and her body was kept in the house until members of the Garda Technical Bureau and the Deputy State Pathologist arrived after 6pm last night.

Ardmore Gardens is a small estate off the Brownshill Road near the Braun Factory in Carlow town.

It was built in the 1990s near Askea parish church and many of the houses are rented out.

Only four of the residents of the 12 houses in the cul-de-sac are listed on the electoral register and just three are owner occupied.

Last night, close neighbours declined to publicly comment and said they did not know the woman.

They said there is a constant turnover of people living in the rented houses and they could not describe what the woman looked like.

They said there was often a blue car parked near the house, which did not have its own driveway and was walled in by a waist height wooden fence.

Gardaí spent much of yesterday trying to establish Ms Campbell’s identity and contact close relations.

A full postmortem examination is expected to be carried out at the city morgue at Marino in Dublin today.