A married couple who died in violent circumstances in Co Clare both suffered single stab wounds to the neck which gardaí believe were inflicted with the same knife.
Third party involvement has been ruled out and gardaí are trying to establish whether they stabbed each other or whether the incident was a murder-suicide.
Angelique (27) and Cornelius Billing (44), were both found on Wednesday evening wounded and covered in blood, but still alive, by fire fighters and gardaí who had gone to the village of Kildysart to deal with an unrelated fire.
Ms Billing ran from the couple’s rented home onto the main street at about 7.30pm with her four-year-old daughter before collapsing in front of gardaí.
She lost consciousness and was pronounced dead on the street.
Gardaí saw her daughter running into the family’s nearby house and followed her.
Bleeding heavily
They saw Mr Billing standing at the top of the stairs, bleeding heavily from a neck wound and holding a knife.
Gardaí shouted at him to drop the weapon and he did so as he collapsed. He exchanged words with gardaí in the seconds before he died.
The couple had two daughters, the second one aged two.
The bodies were left overnight on Wednesday in the house and on the street outside respectively, pending the arrival of a pathologist in the village.
Deputy State Pathologist Dr Michael Curtis examined the remains in situ early on Thursday afternoon before they were taken to Limerick Regional Hospital for full postmortems.
Those examinations were still ongoing on Thursday evening. While both were expected to confirm the South African couple died of stab wounds to the neck, it was hoped Dr Curtis would also be able to confirm whether either of the wounds was self-inflicted.
Kitchen knife
The large kitchen knife Mr Billing was holding was covered in blood and is being examined by Garda forensic experts.
An ongoing technical examination of the house in which the couple lived will also help to piece together the last minutes of their lives.
Because both parties are deceased and because their children would most likely be too young to recount what they may have seen, the detail of the double stabbing will be hard to establish.
One Garda source said the Garda Technical Bureau would be central to that part of the investigation.
“They are used to going into places and examining it in a way that often picks holes in a version of accounts a witness may have given.
“So from examining any damage in the property and blood stains they can tell a lot more than you might think. They can tell a lot about what happened in a place by examining it really closely.”
Extensive examinations
The scene remained sealed off on Thursday. Gardaí said it would be preserved again overnight and that extensive examinations would be carried out there on Friday and possibly into the weekend.
Other sources said while it would be very unusual for one person to be fatally stabbed by another but to then fatally wound their attacker in their dying moments, such a scenario was not impossible. Murder-suicide in the case has not been ruled out.
Relationship ‘floundering’
Gardaí believe the dead couple had endured financial problems and a very difficult period in their relationship, which investigators believed was “troubled” and “floundering”.
Ms Billing was hoping to return to her homeland for Christmas with the couple’s two daughters.
Both children were in the rented house in Kildysart on Wednesday evening when their parents were fatally wounded.
Gardaí have ruled out third party involvement, meaning the inquiry into the deaths is not a criminal case. It has been undertaken to inform the inquest process.
The children’s welfare is now a matter for the HSE, though they are expected to be taken care of by family members from South Africa.
Gardaí have appealed for witnesses or anyone who may have been in Kildysart, particularly on the main street, to contact them.
