The assorted garments used to bind and gag Mrs Catherine Nevin on the morning of her husband's murder were held up in court yesterday.
In the clear, plastic re-sealable bag marked Exhibit 10 were braided woollen bands of the sort sold at GAA matches in two county colours, gold and purple for Wexford and yellow and blue for Wicklow.
When gardai arrived at Jack White's pub on the morning of Mr Nevin's murder, they found Mrs Nevin slumped in the hall of the living quarters, her hands so tightly bound that the braids had to be cut off with a knife and left red marks.
Exhibit 9 contained the black women's knickers which had been stuffed into Mrs Nevin's mouth, and the pair of flesh-coloured nylon tights tied round her head to secure the gag.
Mrs Nevin sat upright and largely still and expressionless while Garda witnesses described finding her and her husband's body on a wet morning in March 1996. She occasionally closed her eyes and bit her lower lip.
She was dressed in a lavender trouser suit and a white top with a gold crucifix. Her shoulder-length fair hair was pinned in a bun and she wore metal-rimmed spectacles. She held her lean tanned hands, with red-painted fingernails, loosely on her lap.
Earlier, seated on the bench awaiting the arrival of the judge and jury, Mrs Nevin read from The Works of Rudyard Kipling, which she also had with her the previous day. There was barely standing space in the court, and several people leaned over the railings in the public gallery.
The jury of six men and six women studied the spiral-bound booklet of scene-of-crime photographs as well as maps and plans of the pub while witnesses gave evidence.
They heard how Mrs Nevin, dazed and with her eyes rolling in her head when found by gardai, had inquired about her husband with the words: "Where's Tom, where's Tom?" As the Garda officers were minutes later to discover, Mr Nevin was by then dead in the kitchen, a large shotgun wound to his chest.