The young woman's body was so badly damaged that forensic specialists were unable at first to determine whether the remains discovered in the torched caravan were male or female. The delay allowed the chief suspect time to flee the area and gardai believe the man later faked his own suicide to evade detection.

It is understood gardai have obtained information that the man, who is in his 30s and has a history of drug addiction, was spotted recently over a period of weeks travelling between Manchester and London.

Speaking publicly for the first time since his daughter's killing, Emer O'Loughlin's father Johnny has pleaded for anyone with information that may lead to a breakthrough in the case to come forward. "It's been a difficult year. You can't describe what it's like, " he told the Sunday Tribune.

The youngest of four children, Emer O'Loughlin was reared from an early age by her father at the family's home at Knockdromagh, outside Ennistymon in County Clare.

Her parents had separated when she was very young.

"Emer was a lovely young girl, " her father said. "The man that did this. . . what sort of man would he have to be, I ask myself. It is hard to understand.

When Emer was little she was so happy here, she had her own pony that she loved. When she was older she had good friends that she liked to come home to visit whenever she was away and would stay with me here."

Her father said she was never happier than when she had enrolled to study art in Galway.

"Emer was like a lot of young people her age. She had a good schooling but she wasn't sure what she wanted to do afterwards and so she went off travelling for a while. It wasn't like when people of my age were young and they went into a job and didn't have choices.

"She thought about it for a while and she decided to go to Holland with friends. She was there for a year and was working and then she spent a month touring around Thailand and she decided that she wanted to study art and photography. It was what she had her heart set on doing. She loved going to college and had nice friends and was happy in what she was doing."

Just days before O'Loughlin's murder she was informed by letter that she had been accepted into the prestigious National College of Art and Design (NCAD) in Dublin, a significant achievement for a mature student taking a Post-Leaving Cert art course at a small west of Ireland college . . . Galway Technical Institute (GTI), at Fr Griffin Road in Galway city.

Emer O'Loughlin lived an artist's life, along with her boyfriend, Shane Bowe. The couple lived in a mobile home on a site at Ballybornagh townland in County Clare, which is owned by Bowe's mother and which is between the villages of Kinvara and Tubber. The area around the site is known locally as the Newline and is popular for unofficial caravan encampments.

Emer's boyfriend Shane still lives at the mobile home the couple shared and remains in close contact with her father.

On the morning of Thursday 8 April 2005, Emer was weeks away from leaving to start a new life in Dublin. She had spent every Thursday in GTI at art classes. But lectures at GTI had been cancelled on 8 April as a mark of respect for the death of Pope John Paul II days previously.

Sometime early that day, after Bowe had left for work at 7.30am, it is believed that Emer O'Loughlin called to another caravan on the site, most likely to borrow a mobile phone charger. It is believed the chief suspect attacked the young woman as she was in the caravan, which he then set ablaze.

The most basic of details of the subsequent garda investigation make for a graphic and disturbing picture of the sadistic killing of a young woman. It has since been established that, following a search of the site, investigating gardai located a Kukri, a type of knife used as a tool and weapon by Gurkha fighters in Nepal.

Such was the horrific condition of the body that it was only when extensive DNA tests were carried out by the forensic science laboratory that the badly damaged remains were identified as Emer's.

After disappearing for several days following the caravan fire, the chief suspect dramatically reappeared two days later and, following what may or may not have been a genuine attempt to take his own life, gardai brought him to St Brigid's psychiatric hospital in Ballinasloe. Upon his release five days later, he fled the area.

At this point, due to the state of Emer's remains, forensic examinations had yet to establish foul play.

Three days later, the suspect's personal effects and clothing were found abandoned on a cliff edge at Dun Aengus fort at Inis Mor, one of the Aran Islands. It was initially presumed by emergency workers that he had committed suicide by jumping off the 300-foot cliff. However, gardai are understood to be working on the theory that the act was an elaborate attempt by the chief suspect to conceal his escape and that, rather than taking his own life, he has gone underground.

After her murder, Emer's classmates and staff at GTI held an exhibition of her artwork in her honour at Fr Griffin Road school. The Further Education and Training Awards Council (FETAC) made an award to her in absentia, to honour the high standard of her work. Speaking to the Sunday Tribune after her death, Emer's former principal at GTI, Peter Keady, described her as "a talented artist and tremendously well-liked".

A mass to mark the 12-month anniversary of Emer O'Loughlin's death will take place this morning at Saint Michael's Catholic church in Ennistymon.

It will be celebrated by Fr Antony Miniter, a relative of the O'Loughlin family.