Convicted killer and sex offender had already died from alcohol poisoning before house fire, inquest hears

A convicted killer and sex offender whose badly burned body was recovered from his home by firefighters died from alcohol poisoning and was already dead when the fire broke out, an inquest has heard.

The body of Conor Downey (54) was recovered by members of the Cork City Fire Service in a back room of the two storey house in Douglas West on Cork’s southside where he lived alone after his elderly aunt went into a nursing home.

Garda Aidan Leahy told South Cork Coroner’s Court how firefighters responded to a report at 3.30pm on April 4th, 2023 and after extinguishing the blaze, they entered the building where they found the badly burned body of a man.

Garda Leahy said that garda technical experts examined the scene and found drug paraphernalia, cigarette butts and empty alcohol bottles near the body of the deceased who had been sitting or lying on a sofa.

He said the man’s remains were burned beyond recognition but gardaí found a receipt for drink bought in Aldi earlier that day.

Garda Leahy said that Mr Downey often smoked when intoxicated and it appeared that he dropped a cigarette while drinking on the sofa which proceeded to catch fire resulting in Mr Downey suffering serious third degree burns all over his body.

Assistant State Pathologist, Dr Margot Bolster said that Mr Downey has suffered multiple bone fractures and multiple lacerations due to severe heat from the fire, but she was satisfied that he was already dead before he suffered the burn injuries.

She said she found a very high Blood Alcohol Concentration of 445 mgs which was above the lethal level of 400mgs while she also found a carbon monoxide saturation level in his blood of just 15pc, well below the 50pc level that is lethal.

Dr Bolster said her view that Mr Downey was already dead when the fire broke out was supported by the fact that she found no soot in his trachea, suggesting he did not inhale smoke which would be the case if he was alive and breathing when the fire broke out.

Coroner for South Cork, Frank O’Connell noted that Mr Downey died as a result of alcohol poisoning and he returned a verdict of accidental death before extending his sympathies to Mr Downey’s siblings on the death of their brother.

Mr Downey had served a three-year sentence in the UK for the manslaughter in London in 1988 of his flatmate Suzanne Reddan (26) from Letterkenny in Co Donegal whom he strangled after she refused him sex before he cut up her body and dumped her remains.

Mr Downey returned to Ireland upon his release. He was asked to give a DNA sample to gardaí investigating the murder and rape of beautician Rachel Kiely (22) in Ballincollig Regional Park in 2000.

Gardaí obtained the sample, and it excluded Mr Downey of any role in Ms Kiely’s killing but it matched a sample taken from a nurse who had been the victim of an attempted rape in 1988, and he was convicted in 2004 and jailed for 12 years for that offence.