A mobile panic alarm was found on a windowsill in the bedroom where the killer of Mrs Catherine Nevin's husband tied her up, a jury in the Central Criminal Court was told yesterday.
Det Garda Thomas Carey, of the Garda Ballistics Unit, said he found the remote alarm unit, which had not been activated, when he examined the preserved scene on March 20th, 1996, the day after the murder.
A Sunday newspaper was lying on a double bed and "ordinary pharmaceuticals" lay on the bedside locker, and a glass of wine nearby. A lady's handbag had been emptied out on the floor, and items and garments from a locker, a wardrobe and a chest of drawers. On the window sill behind the headboard the detective found a box of 12-gauge shotgun cartridges. These would have upwards of 250 shot pellets inside, he said, and were used for birds or small game.
Det Garda Carey told Mr Peter Charleton SC, prosecuting, that a telephone near the bed was off the hook, as was another phone outside the bathroom nearby. He found no evidence of phones ripped out.
Mrs Nevin has said she pressed a stationary panic button behind the front door of the house at Jack White's Inn, where her husband was shot in an armed robbery the prosecution alleges was a set-up, carried out on the orders of his wife.
Mrs Nevin (48) has pleaded not guilty to murdering Mr Thomas Nevin (54) on March 19th, 1996, in their home at Ballinapark, Co Wicklow. She has also pleaded not guilty to soliciting Mr John Jones in 1989; Mr Gerry Heapes in 1990; and Mr William McClean in 1990 to murder her husband.
Det Garda Carey said he and his colleague, Det Garda William Brennan, carried out a test in the kitchen where Mr Nevin was shot, to hear the noise levels generated. They wore earmuffs while firing a semi-automatic shotgun of 12 gauge and a sawn-off shotgun while other gardai were at various locations in the house.
Cross-examined by Mr Patrick MacEntee SC, defending, Det Garda Carey said they did not use a decibel meter to measure the noise levels. Mr MacEntee put it to him that this was "a rough-and-ready enough experiment". The witness said it was merely to ascertain where the shot could be heard from. He said the test showed it could, under different conditions, with doors opened or closed.
Dr Nicholas Buggle told the court he examined Mr Nevin's body shortly after 5 a.m. on March 19th, 1996, and found no signs of life. "The body itself was still warm," he said. "I formed the opinion that he was only recently deceased.
Questioned further he said: "I presumed he was dead a couple of hours, but I can't be sure."
He found Mrs Nevin "very tense and anxious" and "very upset", with red marks around her wrists from being tied but no marks on her legs.
Dr Buggle said Mrs Nevin kept asking to see her husband but he did not think this was advisable. When he eventually told her Tom was dead, "she was very upset and agitated and she kept on saying she wanted to see him".
Miss Justice Carroll will hear further legal submissions today before the jurors return.