A French-Irish teenager with learning difficulties died by “misadventure” after disappearing in the Malaysian jungle on a family vacation and no one else was involved, a coroner ruled yesterday.
The mother of Nora Quoirin, watching proceedings online, bowed her head as the verdict was delivered, with the coroner also saying there was no sign that the 15-year-old was murdered or sexually assaulted.
The teenager’s body was discovered after a hunt through the rainforest following her disappearance from a resort outside Kuala Lumpur in 2019.
Photo: AFP
Police said that there was no foul play and an autopsy conducted in Malaysia found that she probably starved and died of internal bleeding after days in the jungle, but her parents thought she was abducted, saying the teenager would never have climbed out of the window of the chalet where they were staying in the dead of night, as authorities believed.
However, following an inquest in Malaysia, Coroner Maimoonah Aid ruled that she died by “misadventure.”
“After hearing all the relevant evidence, I rule that there was no one involved in the death of Nora Anne [Quoirin],” she told a court in the city of Seremban. “It is more probable than not that she died by misadventure.”
The teenager likely left the family accommodation “on her own and subsequently got lost,” she said, handing down her ruling online due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The teenager’s body was found in a stream in the jungle near the resort after a 10-day hunt that included hundreds of rescuers, helicopters and sniffer dogs.
As well as saying that there was no evidence to support the theories of homicide or sexual assault, she decided against an “open verdict” — something the teenager’s family had pushed for. Instead, Maimoonah focused on the family likely being exhausted after a long journey from the UK and activities at the Dusun resort on the day of their arrival in August 2019.
During the inquest, the teenager’s parents said that they heard mysterious “muffled noises” coming from the accommodation the night of their daughter’s disappearance, fueling their belief she was snatched.
In their testimony, police said the teenager had wandered off alone, while defending their investigation, insisting that a thorough search was conducted, but the parents, who testified via videoconference, painted a different picture, strongly criticizing the authorities for the response to their daughter’s disappearance.
The teenager had holoprosencephaly, a condition where the brain fails to develop normally. She had limited verbal communication and could only write a few words.
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