The tragic story of how a young man killed his former girlfriend as she lay in bed before taking his own life was told at a a Coroner's Court in Cork yesterday.
Verdicts of unlawful killing and suicide were handed down by the jury at an inquest into the tragedy which claimed the lives of Cliona Magner (19) and Wayne Roche (19) in Cork last Valentine's weekend.
Yesterday the inquest into the double tragedy heard that the teens had dated for just over a year, but Mr Roche had grave difficulty handling the apparent end of the relationship. Just a fortnight prior to the murder-suicide he was treated for an attempted overdose. He quickly recovered, though, and returned to his studies.
According to Ms Magner's parents, the second-year mechanical engineering student was trying to put distance between herself and Mr Roche, and wanted to live her own life while at the same time remaining friends and flatmates.
Their deaths shocked the Cork Institute of Technology, where they were both students, and the town of Fermoy where they had both grown up.
Describing Mr Roche as a "nice quiet lad" who was like a big brother to Ms Magner's younger siblings, Mr Pat Magner said yesterday he called to the house in Bishopstown on that Friday because he was worried about his daughter's lack of contact in the previous few days. Mr Magner discovered the two bodies in an upstairs bedroom of a rented house, which the couple were sharing for a number of months.
He said he was looking into Mr Roche's bedroom when he heard his 10-year-old son, Darragh, shout "Daddy, Cliona's in here and she's in bed". He went into the room and found his daughter sitting up in bed with marks to her head and spatters of blood on the wall behind her. He saw the body of Mr Roche lying on top of a shotgun.
"As far as I was concerned she was dead. My main concern was to protect Darragh so I went downstairs calmly. He asked me if Cliona was sick and I said she was," Mr Magner said. Once out on the roadway he rang gardaí.
A flatmate of the couple told the court that the Sunday prior to their deaths, Mr Roche approached him and asked him to help him repair his father's gun, a 0.22 Winchester rifle.
Mr Sean Rice said the rifle was wrapped in a blanket and black refuse sack, which Mr Roche said his younger brother had jammed. He said he didn't want him to get into trouble.
With his experience as a member of a hunt club Mr Rice was able to fix the rifle in minutes but said he was not comfortable with the rifle in the house. Mr Roche assured him he would take it home to Fermoy on the Tuesday.
The last sighting of the couple was on Wednesday evening as they socialised during Rag Week with friends at the Outpost Bar in Bishopstown. Nothing unusual was noticed about either of them.
"Wayne was in great form when he returned home. He was always up for the craic," said Mr Rice
A subsequent Garda investigation revealed that Mr Roche returned with the rifle to his home at Gurrane, Fermoy, on Tuesday. Det Sgt Tim Murphy said that although the young man returned to Cork without the rifle that evening, he subsequently made a phone call to his parents in the early hours of the morning asking them to bring him home as he was lonely.
Later that day he travelled back to the student house at Bishopstown with Ms Magner, and unbeknownst to her had the rifle in the black bag in the car. It was later that night or in the early hours of the following morning that he used the weapon to shoot Ms Magner at close range as she lay in her bed and to kill himself.
In extending her sympathy to both the Roche and Magner families the Coroner, Dr Myra Cullinane, said she hoped the closing of the hearing would allow them to move on with their lives.
"It was a tragedy of epic proportions. You both seem like loving families and you have loving memories of these young people."