State Pathologist Dr Marie Cassidy has said she believes Siobhan Kearney due to ligature strangulation due to compression of the neck and that she died early on the morning of 28 February 2006.
Dr Cassidy was giving evidence at the trial of Brian Kearney for the murder of his wife at their home in Goatstown two years ago. He denies the charge.
The State Pathologist said Ms Kearney suffered three fractures to her neck and had extensive bruising.
She said this was consistent with significant force being applied to her neck and maintained for a sufficient time to cause death by asphyxia.
Prof Cassidy said the vacuum cleaner flex found at the scene could have caused a ligature mark on her neck.
However, she said the fractures of Ms Kearney's neck were more commonly caused by manual strangulation, less common in ligature strangulation and uncommon in hanging from a low level.
She said one hypothesis was that Ms Kearney had been assaulted in her bed, gripped around the neck and rendered semi-conscious, at which point a ligature could have been applied accelerating her death.
Professor Cassidy said she believed Ms Kearney died at some point between 6am and noon on 28 February 2006.
Flex evidence
Tthe Central Criminal Court was earlier told that tests carried out on the flex found around the body of Ms Kearney showed that it could not have supported her body for more than seven seconds.
The prosecution alleges Ms Kearney was strangled and an attempt was made to make her death look like suicide by hanging her body from the door of her en suite bathroom with a vacuum cleaner flex.
Mechanical engineer Niall Murphy gave evidence of carrying out three tests on lengths of cable taken from the flex found around Ms Kearney's body.
In the first test, a weight of almost 54kg, the same weight as Ms Kearney, was applied. The cable failed after five seconds.
When a weight of 42.6kg was applied, the cable failed after ten and a half minutes. And when an intermediate weight of 47.6kg was applied, the flex failed after seven seconds.
Asked if Ms Kearney had been suspended from the cable for how long would she have been suspended, Mr Murphy replied: 'only five to seven seconds or thereabouts'.
Under cross-examination from defence counsel Patrick Gageby, Mr Murphy said he had not been asked to carry out a test where the cable was doubled.
Forensic scientist Michael Norton said when he originally examined the flex, he believed it had been cut.
However, after the tests carried out by Mr Murphy, he now believed the flex had broken rather than been cut.
The trial has now been adjourned until Monday afternoon.
