A CONVICTED murderer died of a heart attack in his jail cell while serving a life sentence for slitting his girlfriend’s throat with a garden shears, an inquest has heard.
Phillip Reddin (24), from Donamore Park in Tallaght, received a life term in September 2003 for killing his girlfriend Niamh Murphy (17) in a derelict house in Ballsbridge a year earlier.
He suffered a cardiac arrest in his Arbour Hill Prison cell seven years later on July 2nd, 2010.
Dr Niamh Collins, a locum consultant at the Mater hospital in Dublin, said Reddin was taken to hospital by ambulance but resuscitation was stopped at 3.05pm, one hour after he was discovered unresponsive in his cell.
Earlier that day Reddin had refused breakfast and dinner, “which would have been very unusual for him” but gave no reason and complained of no problems, according to prison officer John Hagarty, who said Reddin was last seen alive at 1.45pm.
State Pathologist Prof Marie Cassidy told the inquest Reddin had died from a heart attack due to a condition either caused by chronic cocaine usage or arrythmogenic ventricular dysplasia (inherited heart disease).
She could not determine which.