The sister-in-law of murdered Avril Flanagan fought back tears yesterday in a Spanish court as she described finding Ms Flanagan’s body in her brother’s apartment in May 2009.
Emeline Flanagan (29) made the gruesome discovery after going to her brother Alan Daulby’s apartment when Avril went missing from her Spanish home, a week after splitting up with Daulby.
She told a jury trying Daulby (26) for murder that he opened the door, naked, to her and her husband, Ger – Avril’s brother – and slammed it in their faces after angrily claiming he had not seen her.
Ms Flanagan told the court in Elche near Alicante that her father, Alan, was beside himself with grief moments later, after he pulled Avril’s body encased in plastic sheeting from under a sofa.
The 20-year-old expat, from Swords, Co Dublin, had been stabbed 53 times around the head, neck, chest, arms and legs.
Ex-boyfriend Daulby, from Liverpool, was arrested hours later nearly 200km away, after fleeing the Costa Blanca resort of Cabo Roig.
Sobbing at a witness stand near to where her brother sat, head bowed and flanked by two police officers, Ms Flanagan said: “I thought my dad was going to have a heart attack when I came up the stairs to my brother’s flat.”