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Saturday, 30 September 2006, 10:08 GMT 11:08 UK
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<h2>Hundreds attend victim's funeral</h2>


<!-- S BO --><!-- S BO -->
<!-- S IIMA -->
	

	
		<img height="152" hspace="4" align="left" vspace="4" border="0" width="203" alt="Pall bearers at Shirley Finlay's funeral" src="http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/42148000/jpg/_42148062_shirleyfuneral203pa.jpg" />
	
<!-- E IIMA -->
<!-- S SF -->
<B>Several hundred people have attended the funeral of Shirley Finlay on the Antrim Road in north Belfast.</B>
<P>
The 24-year-old woman was murdered and her partially-clothed body wrapped in a duvet and left in a car park in Ballymena two weeks ago.
<P>
At the funeral Mass, Father Johnny Doherty said the young woman had "been brutally murdered and then dumped like trash".
<P>
Ms Finley was buried from St Gerard's, the same church where she was baptised.
<!-- E SF -->
<P>
The flowers and wreaths included those from her two foster families and her birth family, and two large floral arrangements, one spelling out Shirley's name, the other 'friend'.
<P>
Shirley, from Crebilly Road, Ballymena, was found strangled in Mount Street car park on 19 September.
<P>

<!-- S IIMA -->
	

	
		<img height="152" hspace="4" align="left" vspace="4" border="0" width="203" alt="Shirley Finlay" src="http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/42115000/jpg/_42115166_bmena_body203.jpg" />
	
<!-- E IIMA -->
Detectives said a sexual motive was one of their main lines of inquiry.
<P>
Police want to hear from anyone who may have seen Shirley in the Harryville area on Monday 18 September with a tall, dark haired man in his late 20s or early 30s. 
<P>
They are also looking for her footwear and her jeans or black track bottoms. 
<P>
Police have printed posters and leaflets with Ms Finlay's photograph to raise public awareness. 
<P>
A mobile police station is also in operation at the Mount Street car park where her body was found. 
<P>
In the photograph issued of Ms Finlay, she has dark hair, but when she was last seen alive, her hair had been dyed blonde. 
<P>
She was 5ft tall, of slim to average build and was wearing a grey fleece, black trouser bottoms and, possibly, trainers. 
<P>
Ms Finlay has been described as a woman who had mental health problems and who regularly walked alone in Ballymena. 
<P>
Police have described her murder as "brutal".<!-- E BO --><!-- E BO --><br>

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