A reclusive screenwriter and theatre producer may have been dead for almost five months before he was discovered deceased in his apartment in west Cork, an inquest has heard.
Mark Watters (61) was found deceased in the Courtyard Complex in Castletownbere on May 9th, 2024, the Cork County Coroner’s Court, sitting in Bantry, heard on Monday.
The late Mr Watters’s sister, Virginia Watters, told coroner Frank O’Connell her brother grew up in Walkinstown in Dublin and was involved in theatre production and screenwriting.
She said he had moved to west Cork around 2000, but he had become reclusive and developed a serious alcohol dependence which became progressively worse.
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Ms Watters said she had last spoken to brother in March 2023, when he rang her, and it was evident he had been drinking at the time he made the call.
Garda Damian O’Sullivan told the inquest that gardaí were notified by Cork County Council on May 9th that Mr Watters had failed to collect several social welfare payments.
He and his colleague Garda Caroline Guest called to Mr Watters’s apartment at the courtyard. When they failed to get any response, they decided to make a forced entry to the property.
They requested maintenance man Kieran O’Sullivan break a window and when they gained entry to the property, they found Mr Watters’s remains lying in the hallway by the bathroom.
He said Mr Watters’s remains appeared to be badly decomposed but Garda Guest was able to identify him as he was known to her from seeing him around Castletownbere.
Mr Watters was pronounced dead at the scene by local GP Dr Fiona Kelly before his body was removed by undertakers assisted by members of Castletownbere Fire Service.
Garda O’Sullivan said he found unopened Christmas cards in the flat and he also carried out a number of inquiries to try to establish when Mr Watters had last been seen alive.
He established from Castletownbere postmaster Noel Harrington that Mr Watters had collected his last social welfare on December 5th, 2023, but he collected his payments only sporadically.
He also established from inquiries with AIB manager George Lane that Mr Watters had made a top-up payment from his bank account to his electricity supplier on December 15th.
That was the last confirmed activity of any kind by Mr Watters and gardaí had no sightings of Mr Watters or any other activity to indicate that he was alive after that date.
Assistant State Pathologist Dr Margot Bolster told how she carried out a postmortem examination on Mr Watters’s remains at the Cork City Mortuary at CUH on May 10th, 2024.
Dr Bolster said Mr Watters’s remains were mummified, and while she found he had an alcohol concentration of 45mg per 100ml of blood, she believed that the alcohol formed after death.
She said she was able to establish from examining Mr Watters’s lung tissue that he had suffered from bronchial pneumonia, which she believed was the cause of his death.
She told the coroner that pneumonia could occur where a lifestyle involved alcohol dependency and a sudden collapse could easily result from pneumonia.
Dr Bolster also confirmed that the state of Mr Watters’s remains were also consistent with him having died in December 2023.
Mr O’Connell said all the evidence, and in particular Mr Watters’s last bank activity with AIB, indicated he died on or about December 15th, 2023, almost five months before he was found.
He returned a verdict of death due to natural causes.
Mr O’Connell said it was a very tragic case as he extended his sympathies to Ms Watters and her sisters, and Mr Watters’s son and daughter, on the loss of their sibling and father.
“It’s a very sad case but cases like this do happen – he was perfectly entitled to keep himself to himself – that was his right and his entitlement, but it certainly is a very sad case,” he added.
