A forensic scientist has told the Eamonn Lillis murder trial that she found his wife’s blood inside the sleeve of a hoodie he said he was wearing when he found her unconscious, consistent with it being put on over an arm wet with her blood.
Forensic scientist Dr Hilary Clarke told The Central Criminal Court that Celine Cawley’s blood was in a horizontal pattern inside the sleeve.
The 52-year-old TV advert producer has pleaded not guilty to murdering Ms Cawley on December 15, 2008 at their home, Rowan Hill, Windgate Road, Howth.
The 46-year-old died of head injuries after Mr Lillis said he found an intruder attacking her on their patio. He has since admitted that there was no intruder.
Dr Clarke said there was very little blood on the hoodie’s cuff, which would be expected if the sleeve was pulled up and down.
“So in my opinion, the only way that could have got there is by putting an arm wet with blood into the sweater,” she said. She added that the blood was light in colour and appeared diluted.
The scientist said Ms Cawley’s blood was also found on the inside of the t-shirt Mr Lillis said he was wearing. A small amount of her blood was present on the Timberland shoes and Abler Crombie boxer shorts. There was none on his Gap socks.
She said that after viewing Ms Cawley’s clothes and photos of the scene, and given her injury, she would have expected there to be much more blood on his clothes if he was performing CPR.
However she said there was a large contact blood stain matching Ms Cawley’s DNA on the neck, chest and sleeves of a polo shirt found among clean clothes in Mr Lillis’s wardrobe.
Dr Clarke also identified Ms Cawley’s blood on runner boots found in her husband’s wardrobe. She said some of this was airborne, indicating that the boots were nearby when Ms Cawley’s blood travelled through the air.
She said a watch found on the defendant’s bedside locker was bloodstained but appeared to have been wiped. DNA on blood and tissue found in the decorative clasp matched Ms Cawley’s, she said.
“As the face of the watch appeared to have been wiped, it is likely a thin layer of Celine Cawley’s blood was distributed over the face,” she added.
Dr Clarke then moved on to the refuse bag of clothes found in a case under toys and books in the attic of Rowan Hill.
She showed the jury the heavy contact blood staining on the front and sleeves of the black jumper, the front of the right leg of the jeans, the right black Thinsulate glove and the right blue household glove. There was
less blood on the left leg of the jeans and on the left gloves, she said.
She held up the blood-stained tea towel and the blood-stained Abler Crombie boxer shorts that were also in the bag, as well as a pair of socks that she said had a diluted pattern of blood.
Dr Linda Williams later confirmed that the blood on all of these items belonged to the deceased. Other DNA tests excluded the possibility that anyone other than Mr Lillis had worn them.
Meanwhile Dr Clarke had tested the seven pieces of heavily bloodstained paper towel and the tissue that were in the bag. The paper towels tested positive for Ms Cawley’s DNA while the tissue was her husband’s.
“It appeared from the dilute nature of the blood that there was an effort to clean up the blood,” she said.
Dr Clarke said airborne blood matching Ms Cawley’s was found on the outside of the blind on the kitchen door leading to the patio. Contact blood staining on the inside matched the defendant’s. She explained that contact staining could result from someone touching something with bloodied hands.
She said the blood spatter from the outside wall beside the sitting room window matched Ms Cawley’s. It wasn’t possible to extract a DNA profile from the brick found in the pool of blood on the patio. She explained that certain inhibitors present in soil prevent this.
Dr Clarke told Brendan Grehan SC, defending, that she was not aware that Mr Lillis performed CPR with Sergeant Brian Cloone while the defendant was wearing his grey hoodie.
Sergeant Cloone was then recalled to repeat his evidence of this. He said he arrived at the scene about 10.10am, checked for signs of life and commenced CPR. He was on Ms Cawley’s left doing chest compressions and Mr Lillis was on her right giving mouth-to-mouth, he said. They continued until the firemen arrived.
He disagreed with Mr Grehan that the firemen arrived seven minutes later. “It certainly wasn’t seven minutes, maybe two minutes,” he said, agreeing however that the firemen put their time of arrival about 10.17am.
When asked if he had blood on his uniform after giving the CPR, he said he had not.
Pauline Frasier said that a high-pitched scream woke her up at 9.30am that Monday morning.
“It was like a shriek,“ she said, adding that it sounded like a woman. “It struck me as very odd. It’s a very quiet road.” She looked at her watch and it was 9.30am.
“About 30 seconds later it happened again,” she said. “It was very unusual. I thought there was someone in trouble. It would have struck you as though something had happened to somebody.”
She pointed to photographs that showed the view of Rowan Hill’s back garden from her bedroom balcony, which she said faced the sea to the south.
She said that later she knew something was wrong when she saw a helicopter over her neighbour’s garden, but it wasn’t until her husband said there had been an accident that she remembered the screams.
Paula Lynskey said her sister, Sorcha is married to Ms Cawley’s brother, Chris, and she also knew Ms Cawley and her husband through her role as a television advert producer. She said that whenever she would visit Rowan Hill, she would ask Ms Cawley to take in the dogs, who she said could be quite intimidating.
She said she met Mr Lillis driving home after dropping his daughter to school around 8.30am the morning Ms Cawley died.
She said that she got a ‘sinking feeling’ when she heard that a woman matching Ms Cawley’s description had been killed on Windgate Road. She went to her sister’s house, where she said that Mr Lillis later told the family the story about the burglar.
“He said the intruder was wearing gloves but said he’d got the markings on his face from the grapple, which seemed a bit strange,” she said.
“I said something about the horror after such a quiet morning when I met him going home,” she said. “He said that he didn’t go home, that he went to the Summit shop.”
Ms Lynskey agreed with Mr Grehan that she heard raw grief that afternoon when Mr Lillis met his daughter. She did not see them but assumed it came from them.
Ms Cawley’s brother, Chris Cawley, gave evidence that Eamonn Lillis and his niece stayed with him and his wife in the days after his sister’s death. He said that on the Thursday there was a conversation about a newspaper article that said the murder weapon, a brick, had been found.
He said that Mr Lillis described it as a ridiculous non-story, saying that everyone knew the brick was found. “Sure didn’t I hold the brick in my own hand,” said Mr Cawley according to his brother-in-law.
Mr Cawley’s sister-in-law, Siobhán O’Farrell, said she answered Mr Cawley’s door when Mr Lillis came to the house from the garda station on the day his wife died, and that she was shocked by the injuries to his face.
She said that as she showed him into a room to speak to his daughter she noticed him holding his finger. He said he thought he’d lost his nail when he grabbed the intruder’s rucksack.
Ms O’Farrell, who knew Ms Cawley and Mr Lillis for many years, agreed with Mr Grehan that Ms Cawley would have been the more dominant of the two. She hadn’t known them to have any arguments, she said when asked.
“Celine was very private,” she added.
Emma O’Byrne said she worked as a commercials producer for Toytown Films, where Ms Cawley was managing director and Mr Lillis was director. She said that Mr Lillis rang her in the office at 11.15am on December 15, 2008.
“He sounded quite distressed,” she recalled. “He said Celine had been attacked.”
She said Mr Lillis told her he was in the garda station and asked her to find out what hospital his wife was in. She said that when she rang back with the information his phone rang out so she and her colleague drove to Howth.
The following day they went again and Mr Lillis told her he remembered more about the previous day, including that the intruder’s coat was a different colour.
“And that he was holding Celine’s hand to his face and that she’d opened her eyes and put her hands down his face,” she added. She explained that he had demonstrated this with his own hand.
Ms O’Byrne agreed with Mr Grehan that Toytown Films was Ms Cawley’s company and that she was the main decision maker.
“Yeah she was strong. She was the boss really,” she explained. “Eamonn would have taken more of a back seat in the company.”
She said he would have been at home more, collecting and dropping off their daughter, and would not have been in the office as much as his wife.
A woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said she spoke to Mr Lillis at 8.30am that Monday around the time he dropped his daughter off at school.
She said that both his demeanour and appearance were normal.
She confirmed to Mr Grehan that the defendant had no scratches or marks on his face at that time.
The trial continues before Mr Justice Barry White and a jury of six women and six men.