Gardaí believe that a couple who were found dead in a remote house in Cavan, died from poisoning.
RTE tweeted this, “An investigation is under way after the bodies of a man and woman, both believed to be in their 40s, were found at a house in Co Cavan last night”.
Couple named locally:
Today, the couple were named locally as Rolandas Jarmalavicius and Rita Martinkiene. Both are from Lithuania and believed to be in their 40s.
Gardaí said they are keeping an open mind, but they do believe that accidental poisoning may have caused or played a part in their deaths. No sign of forced entry was found at the house in Belturbet.
No obvious signs of injury were found on the victims’ bodies and the post-mortem results will determine how the Garda investigation will proceed.
Rolandas and Rita were in a relationship. They had no children of their own, however, Rita had two grown up children from a former relationship.
Today, Rolandas’s brother Darius explained how the couple had moved to Ireland in the hope of a better life.
Darius said, “Rolandas came to Ireland with Rita around six or seven years ago. They would have known each other for a few years before that in Lithuania,”.
Darius continued, “They had no English when they came, so they were trying to learn the language, save a bit of money and make a better life for themselves here.”
“They thought Ireland was a better place than Lithuania”.
The brother also added the chilling detail of how they found the dead couple in the house.
He said, “We went up there to the house yesterday because we had not seen them for a few days, and we couldn’t find them. Then later my cousin went up and looked in the window and said they could just see someone on the floor inside. They could see their legs,”.
The bodies remained there until the forensic examination was finished.
“We were very shocked”
“We were very shocked to hear what happened. It’s a bad feeling, because this is a very quiet area. We don’t know what happened yet,” one close-by neighbour said.
Another shocked neighbour who worked on a farm also had this to say, “They were living up there around eight years. They were a hard working couple. I got them to do some work on the farm over the years”.
He added, “This is a quiet rural area and you don’t expect this kind of thing to happen”.
