A murder inquiry is under way into the death of a 14-year-old girl after her body was found in a derelict farmhouse in Ireland.

Anastasia Kriegel’s body was discovered in the property outside the village of Lucan in Co Dublin on Thursday afternoon.

Gardai began treating her death as murder after a post-mortem was carried out in the early hours of Friday morning to determine the exact cause of death.

The teenager had been missing from her home in nearby Leixlip since Monday.

She was last seen at St Catherine’s Park outside Lucan at around 5.30pm on Monday – around a kilometre from the farmhouse where her body was found three days later.

Gardai are looking into whether Anastasia may not have been alone at the time she went missing.

An appeal has been made for anyone with any information to come forward.

Garda Superintendent John Gordon said the girl’s family was “extremely distressed”.

He said the body was found as part of a gardai search for Anastasia, known as Ana.

Gardai had been searching the 200-acre St Catherine’s Park since the teenager went missing.

They found her body in a disused farmhouse on the Clonee Road at about 1pm on Thursday.

The scene at Clonee Road remains sealed off as the Garda’s technical examination continues.