Friend: No warning signs on eve of Gibbs killing

THE last person to see Lynn and Ciara Gibbs before Lynn killed Ciara said there were no warning signs of the tragedy that would unfold after she left their house.

Dr Marese Cheasty, a consultant psychiatric who had been friends with Lynn since they were in school together, called to the Gibbs’ family home between 10.15pm and 10.30pm on the night of Saturday, November 25, and stayed about an hour.

No definite time of death has been established for Ciara because of Gibbs’s confusion and inability to remember the full details of what happened that night but she told gardaí she thought she killed her daughter sometime after midnight.

Dr Cheasty told the court, however, she saw no indication of what Lynn would do shortly after she left. “I was concerned — I felt she was very depressed. But there was never a stage where I felt she met the criteria for involuntary admission [to a psychiatric hospital].”

Dr Cheasty said she was in regular phone contact with Gibbs and tried to meet her regularly, but the pair hadn’t met up for several months when Dr Cheasty called around to her house about a month before the killing.

Dr Cheasty said she was dismayed by the condition she found her friend in. “She was very obviously depressed and preoccupied by Ciara,” she said. She arranged to meet Gibbs the following day to talk about what was going on and her friend told her she was anxious, depressed, had no concentration, was losing weight and sleeping badly.

She said she had been to a GP but the medication he prescribed her didn’t agree with her as it made her feel lightheaded. Dr Cheasty urged her to return to the GP but when she refused, Dr Cheasty agreed to prescribe her different drugs.

Gibbs only took them for a week, complaining they made her feel even more anxious. She declined the offer of a more powerful drug because she was afraid it would affect her ability to drive and she would not be able to take Ciara to school. Gibbs told her it would be easier to cope if Ciara had a physical illness.

On the night of November 25 when Dr Cheasty called around to the house, she found her friend in similar, poor form. She said she had taken a lot of Ciara’s hair out of the bath and she expressed concern about finances because she said she could not see herself ever working again.

“She talked about the terrible prognosis for anorexia and how Ciara would never have a career or family because of anorexia. I asked her if she had been thinking about death. She said it came to her mind from time to time. I asked would she ever do anything about that and she said no. She didn’t hesitate and I believed she was telling the truth at the time.”

Dr Cheasty tried to persuade her friend to admit herself to hospital where she would receive regular medication but she said she needed to be home for Ciara. She resolved to ring Gerard the following day to talk about his wife’s need for medication and discuss the possibility of hospitalising her but learned that morning about Ciara’s death.

Dr Cheasty insisted, however, that she couldn’t have foreseen what would happen because although Gibbs’s thinking was “distorted” and “unrealistically pessimistic”, she showed no psychotic symptoms.

“She asked me what Christmas present would she get my daughter — she is godmother to one of my daughters — and she promised she would take the medication,” she said. “She was a very good mother. They are a lovely family.”