The husband and wife killed at their home in Irishtown in Co Mayo on Tuesday died as a result of a murder and suicide, postmortem results are expected to confirm.
Tom Fitzgerald, a painter/decorator in his 70s, was found dead outside the family home, while the body of his wife, Kitty, who was in her 60s, was found inside.
The couple’s son, Paul, who suffered severe injuries from a blunt instrument, remains seriously injured at Beaumont Hospital in Dublin, gardaí said on Wednesday night.
Chief Supt Pat Diskin, head of the Mayo Garda Division, said officers are keeping an “open mind” on the deaths, but added that the postmortem results “will give us a clearer indication of what happened”.
In a bid to ease local fears in the Irishtown/Ballinadine community, Chief Supt Diskin said: “From a local community point of view I am satisfied that the answer to our inquiries lies within the location of the incident.”
Prayers at the house were led by local parish priest Fr Martin O’Connor just before 3pm before the bodies were removed to Mayo University Hospital, Castlebar.
Grim scene
The alarm had been raised 24 hours earlier by a relative who had called to the Fitzgerald home, which is situated about a mile from Irishtown on the Dunmore Road, and discovered the grim scene.
Relatives, friends and a number of neighbours, who have been left stunned by the scale of the tragedy, gathered for the brief ceremony to mark the deaths of the well-known couple.
Garda Technical Bureau experts carried out detailed examinations of the Fitzgerald farmhouse and the surrounding farmyard in a search that began shortly after 10am on Wednesday.
Deputy State Pathologist Dr Michael Curtis will begin postmortem examinations on Thursday afternoon, with preliminary results expected some hours later.
The postmortems would have started earlier but had to be delayed due to the heavy workload faced by the State pathologist, following the number of suspicious deaths around the country this week.
The couple’s only son, who was adopted, was initially taken to University College Hospital, Galway before doctors made the decision to transfer him to Dublin for more specialised treatment.