Gardaí re-examine Swords scene of mystery death

Location of Latvian man’s body does not support theory of fall from mast

Gardaí at a farm near Swords where the body of Latvian man Deniss Timosejevs (22) was found on Tuesday. Photograph: Alan Betson
Gardaí at a farm near Swords where the body of Latvian man Deniss Timosejevs (22) was found on Tuesday. Photograph: Alan Betson

Gardaí investigating the death of a man whose body was found face down in a field have, in an unusual, move begun to re-examine the area where he was discovered in a bid to solve the mystery of his death.

Members of the Garda Technical Bureau and Deputy State Pathologist Dr Khalid Jaber spent yesterday afternoon re-examining the scene.

The man was found dead on Tuesday afternoon and was identified yesterday as 22-year-old Deniss Timosejevs, Thornleigh Place, Applewood, Swords, Co Dublin. He was originally from Ludza in Latvia.

He had no identification or mobile phone on his person when his body was found and was only identified when people he knew read the description of his clothes in media reports and rang gardaí.

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A postmortem concluded he had a broken arm and died from internal injuries consistent with a fall, possibly from a height.

Initially it was believed he could have climbed on to, and jumped or fallen from, a mobile phone mast yards from where his body was found in the field beside Balheary Church, Balheary, just north of Swords.

However, the location of his body in relation to the mast does not appear to support that contention. Garda sources said the initial examination of the nearby ground does not conclusively suggest the dead man fell to that spot from a height.

“It is a question of checking the scene again to see if what is found there and the postmortem results add up to show he died in a certain way,” said one source. Other sources said while it may prove the dead man climbed on to the mast and jumped or fell to his death, the possibility he died or was killed elsewhere and his body brought to Balheary had not been ruled out.

Gardaí believe Mr Timosejevs’s remains were not in the field at Balheary by late afternoon on Monday. He was found dead just after 2.30pm on Tuesday when the farmer who owns the land went to spray crops.

Detectives have enlisted mobile phone operators to track the deceased’s mobile and to map its movements up to the period when it was last used.

Conor Lally

Conor Lally

Conor Lally is Security and Crime Editor of The Irish Times