THE wife of RUC constable John Torney was still alive when police found her and her two dead children, Belfast Crown Court heard yesterday. But Mrs Linda Torney (33) died before ambulance men arrived.
Details of the scene were given to the jury by the first police officers to arrive at Mr Torney's Cookstown home in Co Tyrone. Mr Torney (40) denies murdering his wife, daughter Emma (10), and son John (13), who he claims was the killer.
The officer who found Mrs Torney said he tried to reassure her when he found her still alive, but that within minutes she was dead.
"I pulled the bedclothes down. I was able to see a large pool of blood at the back of her head. She was alive. She was breathing shallow, gasping breaths and I found a pulse," said the witness. "I started talking to her to try and reassure her, but I got no response from her. Approximately two or three minutes afterwards she stopped breathing and I found no pulse," he added.
He said he then went to Emma's room and found her lying in a pool of blood "the pillow seemed to be saturated with blood" he said.
Earlier he said he had found her dead brother wearing police issue gloves, his father's revolver lying beside him, but that the glove on his left hand "was baggy and did not appear to be on right".
The constable said when he and two other officers arrived they found Mr Torney in the driveway of his Lomond Heights home wearing only a pair of track suit bottoms.
"He appeared to be physically shaking and carrying two pieces of paper in his right hand, and in an agitated mood. He appeared to be very clean, there were no marks of dirt or anything at that time," he added, telling the jury that Mr Torney then claimed his son had "gone berserk".
Mr Torney refused to go into the bungalow and kept saying "I'm not going in there, I'm not going in there".
The officer added Mr Torney told him "the young lad, the boy, had a gun. He then said he heard a shot and shouting and his son saying Read the ... ing, notes."
Another officer later took Mr Torney to Cookstown RUC station where his appearance seemed to change. Mr Torney allegedly told him he had thought his house had been "under attack", but appeared no longer to be "upset or gave any indication of anything having happened".
The officer also claimed Mr Torney did not appear shocked, and never mentioned his wife or children and that he found it strange Mr Torney was so calm.
The trial continues today.