A 14-year-old Donegal girl who was found dead in a field close to her home last summer had taken morphine tablets and drank vodka, an inquest at Letterkenny Coroner's Court heard yesterday.
Ms Geraldine Chambers, Rossgier, Lifford, was found by her brother, Colin, on July 15th, 2002.
Her friend, Alicia McGowan, who had also taken alcohol and tablets, survived.
In her deposition, which was read by Supt Jim Gallagher, Ms McGowan recalled that they had gone into Lifford the evening before and had asked Geraldine's brother, Colin, to get them a bottle of vodka.
She revealed that a few days previously she and Geraldine had had a conversation about taking an overdose.
Geraldine had said she "had lived her life and had nothing more to do".
She had also asked Alicia to make her funeral arrangements. Alicia took iodine tablets from her own house. "I thought that if I took enough of them it would kill me," she stated.
Geraldine had taken morphine tablets from her house that belonged to her grandmother.
They drank the vodka and at around 2.00 a.m. on the Monday morning they took the tablets. "We knew what we were going to do. We took a box of tablets. There was about 40 in each box. I swallowed about 40. "I took some iodine tablets as well," she stated.
They went into a field. Alicia said she felt dizzy and her head was spinning. Geraldine had told her she was high.
Alicia then got sick and thought she threw up blood.
She thought she may have taken more tablets, but did not remember anything else until coming around in the casualty department.
Ms Lucy Dineen, a social worker with the North Western Health Board, who had called at the Chambers' house, was told Geraldine and a friend had been missing since 10.40 p.m. the previous evening.
At about 9.50 a.m. Mr Colin Chambers came up to the house and said he had found the two girls in a field. He was "as pale as a ghost". Ms Dineen went to the scene and found Alicia McGowan "huddled into" Geraldine Chambers. Geraldine had no pulse, her neck was stiff and her face was cold. She felt that Geraldine was dead.
When she first attended to Alicia, she could find no pulse. She gave her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and felt her convulse.
She telephoned the local Garda station for assistance.
Det Garda Patrick Flynn, who attended the scene, said there were four letters written by Geraldine Chambers, one each to her mother, father, two brothers, and a friend.
"All four appeared to be suicide letters," he said. These letters were shown to the jury of six.
There was also a letter from Alicia McGowan.
Geraldine's father, Mr John Kelly of Meetinghouse Street, Stranorlar, was informed at 11.45 a.m. that morning that his daughter had died.
Shortly afterwards he was told Geraldine had left notes. "I was shocked. I read the notes but I never thought she was thinking like this," he stated.
The deputy State pathologist, Dr Marie Cassidy, who carried out the post-mortem, said the deceased had "taken several morphine tablets washed down with alcohol".
The jury of six returned a verdict in accordance with medical evidence that death was due to morphine intoxication.