THE CIRCUMSTANCES surrounding the discovery of a woman's body in a neighbour's garden remain unexplained despite a postmortem confirming that she died from natural causes, an inquest heard yesterday.
Coroner for west Cork Frank O’Connell said the mystery of what exactly happened to Noreen Murphy (51) had not been fully solved after a jury returned a verdict that she died from natural causes at a place unknown on July 15th last.
The body of Ms Murphy, a mother of four, Reenrour East, Bantry was found at 12.20am on July 15th lying by the neighbour’s garden wall with her hands joined across her chest and her coat draped over her as if she had been laid there, the inquest heard.
Assistant State Pathologist Dr Margaret Bolster said a postmortem examination revealed that Ms Murphy had died from a spontaneous intracerebral brain haemorrhage with secondary complicating factors.
Dr Bolster said that she believed that it was most likely that Ms Murphy died some hours earlier, late on the evening of July 14th, but early signs of bronchial pneumonia in her lungs suggested that she had been in a coma for some hours before her death.
Dr Bolster said that while she could not rule out with absolute certainty that Ms Murphy died where she had been found, her findings were “quite in line with the body being placed there – that she did not die there”.
She added: “The fact that she was laid out with the coat on top of her and her handbag upended on her – I would not expect to find that if she died there from a spontaneous brain haemorrhage.”
Dr Bolster had also examined Ms Murphy’s body at the scene.
The inquest had earlier heard evidence from neighbour Kathleen Lynch who said she was certain Ms Murphy’s body was not in her garden when she returned home from work at 8.40pm on July 14th, as she would have seen her.
“There’s a possibility her body wasn’t put there until after dark . . . I believe she didn’t arrive until some time after dark,” Ms Lynch said, “because she would have been seen there in daylight – there are always people walking in the estate in summer.”
Ms Murphy’s son James Burke said his mother drank heavily and did not always feed herself properly. She frequently stayed with friends. He said he last saw her alive talking to a neighbour, William Wiseman, at about 3.30pm on July 13th.
Mr Wiseman said he was friendly with Ms Murphy and spoke to her at about 3.50pm on July 13th and, while she used to occasionally call to his house on the same road for drinks, she did not call to him on the afternoon of July 13th.
The inquest also heard evidence that Ms Murphy used to collect her disability payments every Wednesday morning but failed to do so on July 14th. Gardaí had checked CCTV footage, with the last sighting of her in Bantry town on July 13th.
The jury noted that Mr O’Connell’s observation that there was no real evidence of where Ms Murphy was from approximately 3.50pm on July 13th. It returned a verdict that she died from natural causes at a place unknown on July 15th.