English man found dead with his wife in Tipperary home may have died of natural causes
A house in Cloneen near the Tipperary-Kilkenny border where the bodies of two people were found on Monday afternoon. Picture date: Tuesday June 21, 2022. PA Photo. See PA story IRISH Deaths. Photo credit should read: Niall Carson/PA Wire
One of the two English people whose bodies were discovered after 18 months in a house in Tipperary may have died of natural causes.
The postmortem finding has yet to be officially confirmed by gardaí but if it is true, it rules out the possibility that the deaths of Nick and Hilary Smith were the result of a murder-suicide.
It also raises the possibility that 79-year-old Hilary was alone with the body of her 81-year-old husband in the bungalow near the village of Cloneen, near Clonmel, for some time.
The couple had been inseparable since the day they moved into the house ten years ago.
They rarely ventured out of the house and when they did, it was to drive to a branch of Tesco in Clonmel to do their weekly shop.
The last time Mr Smith was seen alive was November 2020 when he spoke to someone about the delivery of parcels of pills to the home he bought from the nephew of one of his next-door neighbours.
Mrs Smith, who is understood not to have been able to drive, was rarely ever seen in the grounds of the home and is understood to have suffered from some sort of a condition that was affected by daylight.
This may explain the fact that the blinds were always down, and curtains were always drawn in the house.
Speaking for the first time in public about the discovery of the couples' bodies on Monday, a next-door neighbour said he feels “gutted” by what happened.
Sean Morrissey, whose nephew Stephen sold to the Smiths the bungalow where their bodies had lain since 2020, said he lies awake at night thinking about the case.
Mr Smith was last seen around the time a neighbour was informed by the Smiths in a letter that the couple was planning to go away “for more than a few weeks”.
Not having seen them around for so long, everyone assumed they had actually gone on an extended holiday as Mr Smith said they would.
Tragically, they never made it and instead were discovered on Monday afternoon after the alarm was raised by neighbours.
Their bodies were found in separate rooms, and it is understood detectives also found rotting food and the remains of broken mugs and smashed glasses littering the floor of at last one room.
“They were a lovely couple who, like me, liked their private life,” Mr Morrissey said.
“I rarely saw or spoke to them in the ten years they were here.
“For a start, they were rarely in their front or back garden, and even if they were, there is a huge hedge and barn that separates us and the house they lived in.”
He added: “I respected their privacy and they respected mine. In that respect, they were ideal neighbours.
“They were very pleasant and very polite and I liked them. I feel gutted about what happened and I shiver at the thought that they were dead in the house next door for so long. I keep going over in my head what I could have done, or what I should have done.
“But it was clear they wanted to be left alone, and they told people they were moving away and added to that, they paid to have the grass mowed at the front of the house.
“As far as I understood it, they were abroad and it just didn’t feel right to go snooping around their property while - I thought - they were away.”
As far as the blinds being down at the bungalow or the way Mr Smith’s 151-reg Volvo was parked at the back of the house, other neighbours say that is the way the car was always parked, and they never saw the blinds up once.
One neighbour said Mr Smith told him he had served in the Falklands War, that he came from Norwich, east England and that both he and his wife were only children.
However, another neighbour said he heard he had a brother who he hadn't spoken to for 20 years.
Gardai are trying to trace the couple’s relatives and are liaising with the UK authorities.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
