A jury at the Central Criminal Court has heard that a hand written note containing questions about Bobby Ryan's disappearance was found at the home of the man who is on trial for his murder.
The A4 sheet of paper was seized from an office at the home of Patrick Quirke at Breanshamore, Co Tipperary who is accused of murdering Bobby Ryan, a part time DJ known as Mr Moonlight.
Mr Quirke has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Mr Ryan at an unknown location on a date between 3 June, 2011 and 30 April, 2013.
Mr Ryan's body was found in a disused run-off tank at his girlfriend Mary Lowry's farm two years after he went missing.
The farm was being leased by Patrick Quirke who had previously been in a relationship with Ms Lowry.
Garda John Walsh said he was part of a team of gardaí who searched the home of Mr Quirke on 17 May 2013.
He searched an office in the house and seized a number of items including a computer, a monitor, a hard drive, two USB sticks and hand written documents.
He said an A4 handwritten note was seized from the office which contained a list of questions including:
"Mary last one to see him? Body naked either murdered and clothes taken off or never left the house? "
Garda Walsh said the words "never left house" were underlined.
The note also contains the question "why did she find his van so quickly, why did she look for him in a place where she knew he would not have needed to go?"
It went on to say: "V strange, token search ?" And
"Why wouldn’t she act on leads by traveling salesman? Why did she give varying accounts of how long he was in yard before he left for work? Two mins?10 mins? Why was she so adamant of no activity took place in yard eg second? How would she hear? Wasn't alway possible. Why did she rip down photos of bobby after Ryan family put them up? Why was she relieved after Crime Call, it was a rubbish programme and no help to jog anyone's memory?"
Exhibits officer Garda Kieran Keane told the court that other items seized during the search included two mobile phones, an iPad, and old hard drive, a Vodafone bill and green overalls taken from a boiler house.
He confirmed during cross-examination that the overalls were forensically tested for blood and the results were negative. He also confirmed that a trailer seized from Mr Quirke's yard was also tested and returned nothing of significance was found.
Plumber Stephen O'Sullivan told the court that he told gardaí that Patrick Quirke ha told the truth when he described how water from a burst pipe flowed into the run-off tank earlier in 2013.
The jury heard that Mr Quirke told gardaí he was drawing water from the tank to mix with slurry when he found the body of Bobby Ryan.
Mr Quirke said he knew there would be water in the tank because of a previous leak in the system.
Stephen O’Sullivan was asked by gardaí to examine the water system at the farm at Fawnagowan to see if he could verify Patrick Quirke's account of water flowing into the run-off tank earlier in 2013.
Mr O'Sullivan said he ran the water to see if it would flow from the old dairy to the milking parlour and into the run-off tank. He said he observed the water flowing into the tank after about 40 minutes to an hour.
He said the tank was designed to do this. The purpose of the exercise was to verify what Mr Quirke had told gardaí and he said "I actually told gardaí he told you the truth."
He said his examination of the water and pipe system was carried out five years ago but he was not informed until just over three weeks ago that he would be a witness in this case.
The court also heard further details about a booking for a twin room at the Cliff House hotel in Waterford in September 2011.
Staff memmber Siobhan Phillips said hotel records showed the telephone booking was made in the name of Patrick Quirke and the email address given was in the name of Mary Lowry.
She said the €400 bill was paid for at the hotel with a laser card.
