Residents shocked after man’s body found in apartment

Residents of a Waterford City apartment block where a man was found dead in suspicious circumstances have expressed their shock at events.

Gardaí are trying to formally identify the man, originally from Africa and believed to have been in his mid-40s, whose body was found in an apartment at Wellington Street close to Ballybricken Green at about 9.15am yesterday.

It is not yet clear if the man was a resident of the apartment where his body was discovered.

The remains of the man, who was reported to have been Somalian, were taken out of the Wellington Square building just after 4.30pm yesterday evening and members of the Garda technical bureau conducted a forensic examination of the scene throughout the day.

Gardaí are also appealing for information from the public in relation to anything suspicious they might have observed in the area.

A report was made to Waterford Garda Station at about 9.30am and emergency services immediately attended the scene, close to the Garda station in Ballybricken.

The man was pronounced dead at the scene and his body remained in the apartment block until late in the afternoon.

Professor Marie Cassidy, the state pathologist, is due to carry out a postmortem examination later today at University Hospital Waterford.

Gardaí confirmed they are treating the death as “suspicious” but the autopsy results will decide the direction of their investigation.

“I’d ask anyone with information on it to contact our incident room here in Waterford,” said Superintendent Chris Delaney.

The apartments in Wellington Square are occupied by Irish people as well as people originally from abroad, including some from Africa.

Abdullaha Musa, who is from Africa but has lived in the area for three years, said what happened was “really scary” and “sad” for everyone. “Throughout the day, that’s all anyone was talking about,” he said.

Mr Musa said he had heard concerns were raised when the man didn’t turn up for work. “I didn’t know him, I’m trying to picture him but I can’t guess who it was.”

Another resident, Christine Hearne, said she only lived four apartments away from where the body was discovered but didn’t know the occupant. “I only heard about it on Facebook, I didn’t hear anything this morning. It’s a bit scary. Sad anyway.”

Another resident, who did not know the victim, said a friend texted him about the news at about 10am. “It’s a big shock.”

The apartment block is close to the site of Wheelbarrow Lane where the “boy soldier” Private John Condon, who died in the First World War in 1915, lived during his childhood.

A local businessman said the first he heard about what happened was when a Garda car pulled up near his premises at about 9.15am. “We thought, at first, it was about a fire that happened yesterday,” he said in relation to an incident which occurred in a different building on the street on Tuesday. “It was only at lunchtime when we saw the Garda car was still there that we realised there was more to it.”