There was no evidence of trauma or outside involvement in the deaths of an elderly couple whose bodies were found in a house in Co Tipperary last year, an inquest has heard.
Both Hillary Smith, 79, and Nicholas Smith, 82, were dead at least a year when their remains were discovered on June 20th last at their home in Rosanne, Cloneen, according to the state pathologist.
The couple were originally from England and had lived in the area for about ten years.
They had told neighbours in late 2020 that they were moving to France and selling their house.
However, locals became concerned when their cars were seen in the back of the property and the garage in 2022.
Gardaí were called and the bodies were found on the afternoon of 20 June 2022.
Mrs Smith's body was found in a chair in a sitting room and Mr Smith was found in a bed. Both bodies were significantly decomposed.
Open verdicts were recorded by the coroner, Joseph Kelly, at the end of the inquest.
Evidence from state pathologist Dr Linda Mulligan was that, on the balance of probabilities, Nicholas Smith died as a result of severe coronary artery disease as she had found evidence of calcification in the heart arteries, with one of the arteries blocked.
Dr Mulligan couldn't ascertain the cause of death of Hillary Smith, she said, because of severe decomposition of the body. There was no evidence of outside involvement or injuries or trauma.
The pathologist said both were likely to have been dead for at least a year when their bodies were found, and died within a short time of each other, because of similar decomposition of the remains.
The coroner Joseph Kelly said that, in most scenarios, the verdict would be death due to natural causes but because of the unusual circumstances of the case, with the couple telling people they were moving abroad, but then remaining in situ in the house, the most appropriate verdicts were open verdicts.
The inquest heard that the couple married in 1967.
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Hillary, born Hillary Taylor, already had a son, Michael Knowles, but he appeared to have been "abandoned" by his mother at a young age and was raised by his grandmother.
He had come forward last year and provided a DNA sample to gardaí and it was established that the woman found in the house was indeed Hillary Smith, his mother.
Nicholas Smith had a brother, Andrew, who was contacted by a genealogy service last year and he also provided gardaí with a DNA sample which showed it was Nicholas whose body was found in the house.
Andrew Smith was present at the inquest and a deposition read out on his behalf stated that the brothers were not close, partly because of an age difference, and they lost contact over the years.
He didn't know that Nicholas and Hillary had moved to Ireland. "We just drifted apart," he said in his deposition.
Detective Garda Michelle Cahill told the inquest that the couple contacted An Post in December of 2020 to set up a "mail minder" which would look after their post; emailed Quality Recycling in the same month to cancel their account for bin collection; and made "several significant donations" to various charities around the same time, from their joint AIB account.
The last incoming call on Nicholas's mobile phone was in November of 2020 and the last outgoing call was on 17 December 2020, to Sky Ireland.
There was milk in the fridge which had been bought in December of 2020.
Billy Brett, a landscape gardener, said he had been cutting the Smiths’ lawn for more than five years and said Nicholas was "a gentleman".
The last message he received from him was on 17 November 2020, when Nicholas texted to say he wanted to pay him as he was going away in December.
He paid him €700, which was nearly double what was due, Mr Brett said, and it was partly for this reason that he kept mowing the lawn for months afterwards.
"I never received a reply from him after I texted to say thanks. That was unusual," he said.
A neighbour, Mary Morrissey, said she got to know the couple about ten years previously when they moved into the house.
They would often stop to chat if they saw her at her front wall, she said, and they asked her down for tea one day. They also attended her daughter’s wedding in 2014.
Before Christmas in 2020, she received a letter, signed by both of them, in which they said they were moving to France and their house was being brought by a family from England.
They were "very nice people," she said, and "very private".
Brian O’Gorman, also a neighbour, said he last saw Nicholas Smith in September of 2020 and described the couple as "pleasant" and people who kept to themselves.
Mary Morrissey told him about the letter stating their intention to move abroad but, as time passed, he started to get worried because nothing was happening with the house and the garden was becoming overgrown.
He decided to walk around the back of the property and saw one of their cars there, and then saw another in the garage.
"This struck me as very strange," he said.
He contacted Mark Fitzgerald, a local publican and county councillor, to relay his concerns, and Mr Fitzgerald in turn contacted gardaí.
The coroner described the deaths as "tragic" and said they happened at a time when a lot of people were self-isolating, notwithstanding the fact that most restrictions had been lifted by then.
Some people continued to isolate and continued to "live in fear of this dreadful pandemic," Mr Kelly said.
While there was no direct evidence of this in relation to the Smiths, it was apparent that they intended to "withdraw from society," having told people they were leaving the area.
"Unfortunately, the close-knit community had no idea they continued to reside there. No doubt this discovery deeply upset the local community."
