Ireland murder probe widens after suspect detained in Jordan

A man wanted in the killing of Jamey Carney was detained in Jordan after leaving Ireland hours after the 43-year-old New York native was found dead in Killarney, County Kerry. The case, which began as a death inquiry, has been upgraded by Gardaí to a murder investigation and now spans Ireland, Turkey, Jordan and the United States.

Carney’s body was discovered last week at a property in the Muckross Road area of Killarney, where a relative found her. Investigators later identified a man they wanted to speak to in connection with the death, widely named in reports as 28-year-old Ahmad Al-Saqar, understood to have been living in Killarney since 2024 and believed to have been Carney’s boyfriend.

Reports said Al-Saqar flew from Dublin Airport to Turkey on Tuesday morning after the killing before being detained in Jordan by the country’s Public Security Directorate. Gardaí said they had not sought his arrest or detention, but Garda headquarters was informed as the international search developed. The detention now puts extradition, evidence-sharing and custody questions at the center of the case, with any next steps likely to depend on coordination between Jordanian authorities, Irish investigators and the foreign agencies already involved.

That coordination has already widened beyond Ireland. American policing partners have been asked to assist, reflecting Carney’s ties to New York and the difficulty of following a suspect who left the country so quickly after the killing. Interpol was also reported to be involved in tracking his movements, underscoring how homicide investigations increasingly depend on rapid cooperation across borders when a suspect can move from an Irish county to a foreign airport and on to another jurisdiction within hours.

Carney’s death has drawn intense attention in Killarney because she was an American mother of a teenager and because the body was found in her own home area on Muckross Road. Her sister, Devon Bennett, has launched a GoFundMe appeal and described her as a caring woman. For Gardaí, the pace of the inquiry now turns on whether the evidence gathered in Kerry, along with records from airports, border checks and overseas police agencies, can be assembled quickly enough to keep the case moving.