DNA profiling strongly suggests but does not prove that a body half-eaten by cats and dogs at a Connemara cottage was that of Mr Tom Clisham, a murder trial jury heard yesterday.
The body was found on a bed, almost completely naked and bound at the wrists with a cloth.
Mr Patrick Joseph McGreene (29), with addresses at Corrib Park and St Mary's Road, Galway, has denied the murder of Mr Clisham (53) between November 24th and December 4th, 1997, at Inverin, Co Galway.
In the Central Criminal Court before a jury and Mr Justice Kelly, a forensic scientist, Mr Matthew James Greenhalgh, who manages a forensic science laboratory in Oxfordshire, England, said he was asked to compare a blood sample taken from the body with that of Mr Clisham's sister, Ms Mary Sherry.
Mr Greenhalgh told the court that brothers and sisters had more similar DNA profiles than unrelated people.
He carried out DNA analysis on the samples received from gardai and concluded they were similar.
Mr Greenhalgh said he carried out two calculations, one assuming the samples were of a brother and sister, the other assuming they were of two unrelated people. He then compared the results of these calculations.
He found the samples were "700 times more likely" to be those of a brother and sister. "I would rank this as providing strong support that those two individuals were brother and sister," he told Mr Michael Durack SC, prosecuting.
Cross-examined by counsel for the defence, Mr John Rogers SC, Mr Greenhalgh said the DNA evidence provided strong support that the samples were of siblings "but it does not prove it".
He could not say with certainty they were of siblings, he said, but there was a 700:1 probability they were.
He told Mr Rogers he had considered the assumption that people coming from the same small community might be interrelated.
If this was the only factor, the degree of similarity in profiles would be "very slight compared to what we have here", he said.
He agreed that DNA profile evidence brought forward in criminal cases was often presented as "a virtual certainty" and scientists often talked in terms of a million-to-one probability.
The highest he could go in this case was 700:1, but he said it was "a different calculation".
The analysis and calculations were different when comparing brothers and sisters, he said.
The trial continues today.