Dead Paceville girl identified

Following a call to the public for assistance yesterday, the police have managed to identify a young woman, aged 17, who was found unconscious on the doorstep of an apartment block in Paceville in the early hours of Monday. The woman was found at about 2 a.m. by the police, after they got an anonymous telephone call saying that a girl had passed out on the pavement in Wilga Street.

There were no external signs of violence on her body. She was rushed to hospital but attempts to revive her failed.

In a terse statement yesterday evening shortly after they had issued a photograph of the woman, the police said the dead person is Russian and that she was holidaying here with friends.

A number of people, including residents of the apartment block where she was found, were questioned by the police in an attempt to establish her whereabouts before her death. But nothing has come out of the investigations so far, police sources told The Times.

Throughout most of yesterday the police were still trying to establish the woman's identity. Initially, it was not clear whether the woman was Maltese or foreign, although the police were working on the theory that she was likely to be a tourist. Pictures of her were shown to staff and students at language schools, on the assumption that the woman might be a language student.

Investigators are suspecting a heroin overdose because of puncture wounds on one of the her arms, which, however, could relate to previous drug abuse use, the sources said. The police will have to wait for a toxicology report to be able to determine this.

The girl was wearing evening clothes and was "well groomed", the sources added.

Duty Magistrate Michael Mallia has appointed a number of experts to assist him in an inquiry.