Three pieces of human skull bone were found in a black refuse sack close to the body of Franco Sacco, the Dublin chip-shop owner shot dead as he lay on his bed in 1997.
The disclosure came on the second day of the trial of Ms Anna Maria Sacco (21), who has pleaded not guilty to the murder of her husband, Franco Sacco (29), at their home at Coolamber Park, Templeogue, on March 20th, 1997.
A Central Criminal Court jury heard Det Garda William Brennan of the ballistics section of the Garda Technical Bureau say that when he went to examine the scene of the killing at the couple's home at 10.45 p.m. on March 20th last year, all the curtains and roller blinds in the two-storey semi-detached house had been pulled and the rear door was secured.
In a cloakroom-cum-utility room under the stairwell there was a shotgun "slip" standing in a corner. He removed it and unzipped it in the presence of another officer.
Inside was a 12-gauge double-barrelled "under-and-over" sporting shotgun. "I found both chambers empty and it had a pungent odour from it, indicative of recent discharge," he said.
Upstairs, the deceased was lying on the floor of the main bedroom next to a heavily bloodstained mattress with no base under it. Only his head and his right arm were visible.
"Eight bedsheets of various colours, five padded quilts and duvet covers, an electric blanket and two hand towels" were wrapped around his body.
A plastic mono-wad, which holds the pellets of shot together prior to discharge, was found in one of the duvets. Tests showed this wad was consistent with those fired from the deceased man's shotgun.
Franco Sacco was dressed solely in a white singlet vest, and was wearing a watch, a chain and a number of rings.
Det Garda Brennan noticed "a very severe head wound to the right side of his temple". The shotgun discharge had removed most of the top portion of the head.
A pillow was "trapped" between the head and the arm with dried, congealed blood. The direction of blood splatter on it suggested Mr Sacco had been shot when his head was in a similar position to that in which it was found.
He had been lying on the mattress and was shot from a distance of 7 1/2 to 9 feet between the mattress and the door, shotgun pellets spraying the wall behind his head.
Close to the body, two black plastic sacks lay beside a pair of slacks in front of a wardrobe. One of the bags contained what he believed to be three pieces of human skull bone.
Three unused cartridges were found in the other bedroom used in the house. Gardai also counted 413 shotgun cartridges of various sporting shot sizes stored in a shed in the garden.
On the floor of the upstairs landing, Det Garda Brennan noted a container of spray bleach and a plastic bag which contained "a red-stained item".
In the bathroom opposite the main bedroom, shotgun pellets and "a piece of human skull bone" were inside the toilet bowl. There was also skull bone in the waste trap of the bath. A green scrubbing pad, a scrubbing brush and a basin standing in the bath were all bloodstained.
Blood had been cleaned from a radiator close to the bloodstained mattress in the main bedroom "and there was a strong smell of bleach from the radiator surface".
Det Garda Brennan said he then went to Luigi's chip shop in Rathfarnham. There, in the back of a storage cupboard over two walk-in freezers in the staff kitchen, a "new-looking" discharged shotgun cartridge case was found. A microscopic examination of this cartridge case satisfied the Garda that it had been discharged from the top barrel of Mr Sacco's gun.
Det Garda Brennan told Mr Barry White SC, for Ms Sacco, that he had handed the evidence bags containing the black refuse sacks to his colleague, Det Garda Sheridan, in the early hours of March 21st.
He agreed that the date on the evidence bag produced in court was March 22nd. He also agreed with Mr White that it was "possibly not" good forensic practice that the two refuse sacks were not separated or separately labelled but had been put in the same evidence bag.
Earlier in court, Mr Gioacchino Dinardi told Mr Fergal Foley BL, prosecuting, that he had become "good friends" with Franco Sacco "about four years ago" when Sacco began to run Luigi's chip shop in Rathfarnham village. Mr Dinardi said he was proprietor of another chip shop in Marian Road, Rathfarnham.
Both were from Cassino in Italy. In 1975 Mr Dinardi (38) came to Ireland to live and work; "eleven years ago" Franco Sacco arrived. Franco worked with Luigi Sacco, a cousin, and father to his future wife, the accused.
"Three years ago" Franco and Anna Maria Sacco had married, and Mr Dinardi's friendship with the deceased continued. Franco Sacco would regularly come over to his house to watch Italian football on television, "almost every weekend", he said.
On the night of March 18th, Franco Sacco had watched a match with him at his house and then they went for a meal in an Italian restaurant in the city centre.
He had wanted his friend to come over at 10 p.m. on the 19th, but he did not come until about 1 a.m. They watched football and Mr Sacco left between 1.30 a.m. and 1.45 a.m.
Asked what was sort of form Sacco was in that night, Mr Dinardi said: "He was looking like someone who had a bad day, that's all." He went on: "He was a hard man. Sometimes he was in a bad mood, sometimes a good mood."
This was the last time he had seen his friend alive. Later on Thursday, between 8 p.m. and 8.45 p.m., he received a phone call from Anna Maria Sacco. She had asked him either was Franco there or had he seen Franco, and he said no, he had not seen him since the night before. Then "the phone went dead", he said.
Various residents of Coolamber Park gave evidence of sightings close to the Sacco house on the day of the killing.
Ms Nora Ryan said she saw a red car outside the house at around 1.45 p.m. At 2.15 p.m. a white Fiesta van arrived and she noticed "the top of the head of a lady getting out of it" on the passenger side. The woman had blond hair, and she took her now to be the teenager who had shot Mr Sacco. She heard the windows of the house being closed and the curtains "swished" shut and she also heard music. The white van had left when she next noticed at around 4 p.m.
The trial continues today before Mr Justice O'Higgins and a jury.