Two French pathologists and a fire expert have concluded that the two Irish students who lost their lives in a house fire in Lorient last Friday died of asphyxiation in a blaze started by a burning cigarette, according to local police.
Patricia McDonald (21), from Cootehill, Co Cavan, and Carol Nolan (20), from Walkinstown, Dublin, died in the fire.
Captain Jean-Marie Le Clech, the officer leading the investigation, told The Irish Times yesterday that the young women "lost consciousness very quickly and did not suffer". There was no evidence of foul play, he said.
Capt Le Clech was speaking following autopsies and a thorough examination of the cottage where the two Erasmus students lived in Larmor Plage, on the outskirts of the Breton port town of Lorient.
The young women's families were due to arrive in Lorient late yesterday to make arrangements to take the bodies home to Ireland for burial. Capt Le Clech said a release form will probably be issued today once final results from blood tests are available.
About 50 of the young women's friends at the University of Southern Brittany - from the US, Canada, Venezuela, Australia, Germany, Spain, Britain, France and Ireland - gathered yesterday morning in the lane in front of the house where they died. The students will hold a memorial service, with an Irish piper, later this week.
Friends and neighbours described Patricia and Carol as exceptionally outgoing and lively young women. Inseparable friends, they often organised parties. Carol threw a surprise party at Lorient's Shamrock pub for Patricia's 21st birthday on September 29th, and Carol was to have travelled home to Dublin to celebrate her 21st birthday on January 29th.
There was still a scent of singed wood and plaster in the lane off the rue de Kerblaisy yesterday, but were it not for the flowers and candles lined up outside the white terraced cottage - bearing the unlucky number 13 - you might not have known where the fire happened. A red wax police seal is melted on to the front door. The downstairs shutters were closed, and through the panes of the front door there was only blackness.
"They came home at 4.30 in the morning on Friday," said Jean-Paul Le Dauphin, a retired nuclear energy technician who lives on the other side of the wall from the cottage where Patricia and Carol died. "I heard a car drop them off. I heard them singing and moving around for an hour after that. Later, I assumed they'd gone to classes."
At 12.45 in the afternoon, Didier Raté, the architectural draughtsman and neighbour who rented the cottage to the Irish women, knocked on Mr Le Dauphin's door in a panic. "He saw smoke coming from the girls' house," Mr Le Dauphin said. "We opened the door with his key, but you couldn't go in without a protective mask. We dialled 18 for the fire department. We never dreamed the young girls were in there."
Louise Le Palabre, a neighbour from the end of the lane, came out of her home in tears. "They never saw me without saying 'Bonjour, bonjour'," the retired accountant said. "They were always smiling. I never saw one without the other."
Pádraig Larkin, the owner of The Galway Inn in Lorient, and Gérard Genin, his barman, arrived to add their flowers to the tributes in front of the cottage. "They used to come to the pub every Wednesday for our Irish session," Mr Larkin said. "There are 20 musicians, and you couldn't hear the music over them talking . . . For me they were a lesson in humanity; light-hearted but serious in their studies. They held a Christmas party in my pub on December 13th, and both of them dressed up as Santas."
The young women were studying translation, English history, Spanish and 19th century French literature.
At Le Margaret bar overlooking the port of Lorient, friends of Patricia and Carol tried to describe their loss. "Everyone adored the girls. They were life itself," said Michelle Conry, a university language assistant from Galway. "They were local celebrities . . . There's a big gap, a hole, something missing in Lorient now. Everyone's in shock, complete shock." She held a book of condolences that the young women's friends prepared for the McDonald and Nolan families.
Ms Conry and Richard Rohan, an exchange student from Waterford Institute of Technology, were on the same flight to Shannon with Patricia and Carol on December 17th. "They were giddily excited to be going home for Christmas," Mr Rohan said. "They were great for dressing up in fancy dress, getting people together."
Mr Rohan was among the 15 young people who met Patricia and Carol at the Cheyenne Café for drinks on the evening of January 5th. "We played pool. Carol did an impression of Tommy Tiernan, the comedian," Mr Rohan recalled. "We sang a U2 song together." He left the Cheyenne about 12.30am. Patricia and Carol stayed until the Cheyenne closed at 1am, then went to Le Passeport nightclub until it closed at 4am.
At Lorient police headquarters, Capt Le Clech explained the tragic accident that led to the deaths of Patricia and Carol. "When the firemen arrived around 1pm on Friday, the smoke was so thick they had to feel their way along the walls. They found them on the first floor landing. Carol was sitting on the floor with her back to the wall, and Patricia was lying down with her head on Carol's legs. The firemen carried them out and tried to resuscitate them, but they were already dead."
Without oxygen in the closed-up house, the fire smouldered for a long time, he said. Police quickly excluded all possibility of criminal intent.
"The house was locked from the inside. There was no break-in. Their computers, cell phones and money were untouched."
He said a forensic expert had established that there were in fact two fires. The young women had apparently fried food on the gas cooker after their night out. One of the students is believed to have gone downstairs to extinguish a cooker fire. Damage around the cooker was minor and the gas was turned off.
Clothing on a coat hook at the bottom of the stairs burned completely, and the lower steps were incinerated. The forensic scientist believes a burning cigarette may have been dropped there. The two women were probably sitting on the landing, talking. They are believed to have died around 6am. The pathologists found soot in the young women's respiratory tracts, indicating they died of asphyxiation. "Without oxygen, they would have lost consciousness quickly," Capt Le Clech said. "They would not have felt any pain."
Frédérique Dubost, the deputy prosecutor of Lorient, asked two pathologists to perform autopsies, to remove any shadow of a doubt regarding the cause of death, and to enable the families to take the bodies home quickly.
The photograph of Patricia and her Irish boyfriend Paul in the young woman's room drove home to Capt Le Clech the tragedy of the students' deaths. Paul visited Lorient at Halloween, when he met the Irish women's friends. He returned here with their families last night.
This morning Capt Le Clech will explain the investigation to the families in the greatest possible detail, in the hope it will help them.