Emergency staff describe scene at house

The priest who performed the Last Rites, emergency services personnel and friends of the family, including a member of the Garda…

The priest who performed the Last Rites, emergency services personnel and friends of the family, including a member of the Garda Síochána, were among a long list of witnesses who gave evidence on the second day of the trial of a man for the murder of his wife, Siobhán Kearney, at their home two years ago.

One of the emergency services personnel first on the scene, John Fitzgerald, told Dominic McGinn, prosecuting, that he arrived with a colleague at about 10.40am.

He went upstairs to the bedroom where Ms Kearney's body had been found earlier by her father.

"She would have been rolled in towards the wardrobe in almost a recovery or a foetal position. She would have been slightly curled up but not wrapped in a ball."

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He told Mr McGinn that he noticed the flex of the nearby vacuum cleaner wrapped around Ms Kearney's body and had to untangle it so that he could begin work.

Alan Finn, a member of Dublin Fire Brigade, told Mr McGinn that when he arrived after the ambulance crew, he had gone upstairs. He noticed the door of the bedroom had been forced.

"I remember seeing a key on the ground about two feet inside the room."

He said there were some obvious signs that Ms Kearney was dead. As well as rigor mortis, "there were obviously some marks around the neck and some blood pooling along the face".

Billy McHugh, also from fire brigade, told Mr McGinn he noticed a toy gun beside the body.

"It looked like an air rifle. I didn't go too close. I didn't touch anything."

His colleague, Neil Hogan, told Mr McGinn that he had searched the room for a suicide note or for medication or drugs but he did not find anything.

He said he had not seen Siobhán's mother come in and sit on the bed, looking for a note.

Michael O'Reilly, also from the fire brigade, told Patrick Gageby SC, defending, that when he spoke to the McLaughlin family downstairs, her mother told him that her daughter was "going through a rough patch" and had been looking for tablets the night before.

Fr Ivan Tonge told Mr McGinn that he had known the McLaughlin family for several years. On the day of Siobhán's death, he received a call from Brighid McLaughlin, her sister, telling what had happened. He went to the house to perform the Last Rites.

Fr Tonge told Mr Gageby, that members of Siobhán's family were present while he was performing the Last Rites, including her father, who seemed visibly upset.