Colourful loyalist flags on the houses next-door to where Elizabeth O'Neill lost her life hung limp and still as forensic experts examined the garden of 49 Corcrain Drive in breaking daylight.
The 59-year-old, who was nearing retirement, had stayed up late to watch television while her husband, Joseph, slept upstairs. Shortly before 1 a.m. on Saturday a brick broke through the livingroom window, followed by the explosive device.
Ms O'Neill had picked up the device to throw it from the room when it detonated.
By mid-morning the police had gone and the broken front window was boarded up. One of the two grown-up sons briefly returned to the family home to collect personal belongings. He climbed the few steps to the front of the terraced house.
Ms O'Neill, a child of a mixed marriage but raised a Protestant, had married a Catholic and raised her children as Catholics.
The couple lived in the house for 36 years, but as sectarian tension grew in the area they gave no indication of planning to move from the predominantly loyalist estate.
As day progressed, neighbours went about their business, women returned from the shops laden with shopping bags and children played on a makeshift tree swing across the road from the scene of the blast.
One man on the estate said he saw no reason why the O'Neills should have been targeted. "They would come up the street and watch band parades and the whole works. The loveliest couple you could have met. It's a shaming disgrace, terrible."
Another neighbour described those behind the attack as "cowards" and "scum". Ms O'Neill was quiet and non-political, said a woman.
In the afternoon, people along the well-kept street came into their gardens or congregated at corners, talking among themselves. The North's First Minister, Mr David Trimble, visited the town and met local representatives and senior RUC officers at the police station.