The 15-year-old's parents insist their daughter could not have been alone because of her mental and physical disabilities. They maintain she was kidnapped from the cottage.
ADVERTISEMENTA Malaysia coroner has ruled out the involvement of other people in the death of French-Irish teenager Nora Anne Quoirin, saying the family's suggestion of kidnap was "nothing more than probably theory".
The 15-year-old went missing a day after she and her family arrived at the Dusun eco-resort in southern Negeri Sembilan state in August 2019. Her naked body was found nine days later next to a stream on a palm oil estate around 2.5 kilometres from the resort.
Nora's parents maintain their daughter was kidnapped as they say she could not have left the family cottage alone due to her mental and physical disabilities; however, Coroner Maimoonah Aid ruled out murder, natural death and suicide, and said it was likely due to a misadventure.
She said there had been no suspicious circumstances before the teen's death, nor had there been any ransom requests or signs of forced entry to the family cottage.
"I ruled that there was no one involved in the death of Nora Anne. It is more probable than not that she died by misadventure, i.e. that she had gone out of the (cottage) on her own and subsequently got lost in the abundant palm oil plantation," the coroner said.
Police believe Nora had climbed out of the cottage window - where a broken latch was found the next day. The coroner added that she may have broken this by accident after being woken by loud party noises or the heat, and could have left the cottage when she was unable to open her parents' heavy sliding doors.
Nora was also just wearing underwear when she left, but was found naked - giving rise to theories of foul play. But Maimoonah said an extensive autopsy found there was no evidence of sexual assault, nor of a struggle or smothering.
A British pathologist who performed a second autopsy on Nora's body testified that he agreed with the Malaysian findings that she died of intestinal bleeding due to starvation and stress - although, he also said he couldn’t fully rule out sexual assault due to severe body decomposition.
A total of 49 witnesses have testified over 24 days since August last year via video-conferencing due to the coronavirus pandemic.