Two elderly sisters have been found dead in their shared home near Waterford City centre. Local gardaí last night said they were not treating the deaths as suspicious and both women died from natural causes.
The bodies of the two women, 87-year-old Ms Maureen Culbert and her 90-year-old sister Hilda, were discovered at their house in Thomas Hill, near the quay in Waterford city on Thursday after gardaí broke into the house through the back door.
Relatives and concerned neighbours had alerted the Garda a number of days earlier, as neither woman had been seen outdoors for more than a week. It is understood that one of the sisters was housebound, but that the other sister regularly left the house to run errands.
Gardaí made several calls to the house over a number of days before finally forcing entry on Thursday. The bodies of the women were found together in a downstairs bedroom.
A post mortem was conducted yesterday afternoon and both women were found to have died of natural causes.
A neighbour, Ms Bridie Cheasty, told RTÉ news: "In a way, it's lovely that they're both gone together because for one to be left without the other I think would be very, very sad. I don't imagine she'd last for much longer, you know, one without the other".
