Gardaí investigating the murder of 90-year-old man Paddy Lyons in Co Waterford have sealed off a house in Clonmel for a forensic examination.
Garda technical experts cordoned off the house on the Waterford Road in Clonmel, Co Tipperary, on Monday evening. On Tuesday, up to 10 technical experts began a forensic examination of the house.
The examination began as gardaí continued to question a man in his early 20s from Co Waterford who was arrested in the Clonmel area on Monday in relation to the death of Mr Lyons.
The man is detained at Dungarvan Garda station under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act which allows gardaí to detain suspects for up to 24 hours before they have to be released or charged.
Mr Lyons, a bachelor farmer, was found dead at his home outside Ballysaggart, some 11km from Lismore at about 5pm on Saturday by a neighbour and home help who called to check on him.
She had been alerted by a couple who had called to the house and found Mr Lyons slumped in an armchair in the single storey cottage and they called to the neighbour to alert her to the tragedy.
The emergency services were called and attended to Mr Lyons but he was pronounced dead at the scene and gardaí requested the services of the State Pathologist’s Office.
On Tuesday, Supt Michael Leacy of Dungarvan Garda station confirmed that gardaí were now treating Mr Lyons’s death as murder but he declined to disclose how the retired farmer had died.
However, it is understood that Mr Lyons suffered a number of head injuries during a burglary which gardaí believe happened sometime on Friday evening or Friday night in his isolated homestead.
Garda technical experts were on Wednesday continuing with an examination of Mr Lyons’s house which is located some 500m down a muddy track off the main Lismore to Mitchelstown road.
Gardaí on Monday confirmed that they had been contacted by the couple who first found Mr Lyons and called to a neighbour and it is understood that they have taken witness statements from them.
