THE HUSBAND of a woman who died after setting herself on fire in a car has told an inquest that his wife was “devastated” when in vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatment wasn’t successful, and wanted to “try again immediately”.
The 30-year-old woman, who lived in south county Dublin, was pronounced dead on June 3rd, 2009, due to inhalation of smoke and fire gases. The woman’s burned body and car were found several miles from her home.
Rosemary Leeson of Ballymahon House, Ballymahon, Bray, Co Wicklow, said she heard some “loud bangs” in the early hours of June 3rd near her home.
She thought the milking parlour was on fire, she told Dublin County Coroner’s Court.
Her husband John Leeson and his son Andrew drove to the milking parlour, where they noticed a car on fire.
After hosing the fire down, they noticed a burned body on the ground beside the car.
Gardaí were satisfied following an investigation that there was nobody else involved. “This was a tragic death,” said Det Sgt Joe O’Hara. A verdict of death by suicide, under the direction of coroner Dr Kieran Geraghty, was returned by the jury.
The woman’s husband told the inquest his wife was extremely upset when in March 2009 they were told the IVF treatment they had begun in January of the same year had not been successful.
The couple had married in July 2007. Three days before her death, he said to his wife they could not attempt the IVF just yet.
“I told her she was suffering from depression and she needed help . . . I begged with her to get help, but she wouldn’t. I feel she was thinking that help would interfere with the IVF treatment. She was very down.”
He said his wife “was obsessed with having the treatment again. Nothing else was in her head.”
She talked to her husband again about IVF on the evening before her body was found and he said to her about five times that she would have to get help because she was suffering from depression.
The woman had left the house and went for a drive on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday night, the inquest heard.
Her husband said he noticed a change in his wife around the time her aunt died in 2008.
He told the coroner they had a “fantastic relationship and a very loving relationship”.
Her mother, who had a very close relationship with her daughter, was too upset to attend the inquest.
She said in a statement read out in court that she spoke to her daughter on June 2nd and she mentioned her husband’s refusal to attempt another round of IVF.
The coroner said it was a terribly tragic death. “I want to extend my sympathy to her family,” he said.