Irishman faces murder charge in New York

A 23-YEAR-OLD Irishman has been arrested in New York on suspicion of murdering his American ex-girlfriend.

Gary McGurk, who has Irish and American citizenship, was arrested at his mother’s house in Woodside, Queens in New York yesterday.

McGurk is accused of stabbing his girlfriend Michele Lee, 24, in the throat and burning her chest with a hot iron after she died.

Ms Lee was found in her apartment in the nearby Sunnyside district of Queens on April 27.

She was naked and bound. She had been badly beaten and stabbed.

The 24-year-old woman was a graduate of John Jay College of Criminal Justice and had been working as a forensic investigator for the New York Police Department.

Police are understood to have been led to McGurk, who also studied at John Jay College, after a diary kept by the victim showed she had been having a secret relationship with the Irishman.

One entry noted that McGurk had cancer, which was untrue. The diary also contained information that Ms Lee was funding McGurk’s supposed treatment for cancer at the time of her murder.

According to the New York Daily News, McGurk may have conned Ms Lee out of thousands of dollars.

On a website McGurk wrote: “I am my own person and I do not intend to change for anyone. I’m capable of switching accents at will. I am an a-hole, no regrets.”

In his last website posting, recorded after Ms Lee’s death, he described himself as feeling “blissful”.

The soccer player has been indicted on charges of second degree murder, tampering with physical evidence and criminal possession of a weapon.