INDIAN police have revealed that the suspect in the killing of a Glasgow-born backpacker at a tourist resort in Goa will face murder and rape charges.
Umesh Gaonkar, a superintendent with Goa Police, said a post-mortem examination showed that Danielle McLaughlin suffered cerebral damage and constriction of the neck, causing her death.
The 28-year-old victim, who was born in Glasgow but grew up in Buncrana, Co Donegal, was found dead in a secluded spot in Canacona, a popular area for holidaymakers, on Tuesday morning.
Local media reported the former Liverpool John Moores University student’s body was discovered unclothed and Gaonkar said that a suspect, a local criminal arrested a day after a farmer discovered McLaughlin’s body, would face rape and murder charges.
She had travelled to Goa with an Australian female friend and the pair were staying in a beach hut.
They had been celebrating Holi – a Hindu spring festival – on Monday night at a nearby village. She left the village late at night and her body was found the next day, said Gaonkar.
Grainy CCTV footage has emerged of Danielle’s final movements recorded just hours before she was raped and killed.
She was seen walking in the street and turns as if to speak to a man behind her in the grainy footage. Just hours later her naked body was found in a pool of blood.
Deputy superintendent Sammy Tavares told local reporters that a man named Vikas Bhagat, 24, had been arrested. Bhagat had confessed to raping the victim and killing her, he said.
A two-wheeled vehicle and some clothes, reported to have bloodstains on them, have also been seized as part of the investigation.
Christy Duffy, a close friend of Danielle’s from Buncrana, said her body has been released from the post-mortem and would likely begin a journey home to Ireland on Friday. It is expected her remains will travel to Mumbai, Dubai and then Dublin.
The journey is expected to take up to six days, prolonging an agonising wait for her mother Andrea Brannigan.
Danielle was the the eldest of her five daughters. “Two friends who reside in Australia are currently travelling to Goa to meet with the body to accompany it for the repatriation process,” Duffy said.
He has raised more than €30,000 (£26,000) to help with the costs and to “give her the send-off she deserves”.
Thanking donors “from the bottom of my heart”, Duffy added: “It has taken additional stress out of the equation. The family are holding up as well as can be expected and will be relieved to have her back on home soil”.
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