A Wicklow publican, Mr Tom Nevin, was shot at a range of two yards or less and died where he fell, the State Pathologist told the murder trial of his widow, Catherine, yesterday.
Prof John Harbison said Mr Nevin was sitting at the kitchen counter on a bar stool, totting up the takings of a St Patrick's bank holiday Monday, when he was shot once in the right chest at such close range that two shot cards discharged with the pellets were found in tissue beneath the entry wound.
A Garda ballistics expert, Det. Garda William Brennan, had earlier put the range at between "one and four yards".
Dr Harbison said he found "no apparent spread" of the pellets. "This placed the range of the shot within two yards, possibly less," he said.
Dr Harbison was being questioned by Mr Tom O'Connell, prosecuting, on the fifth day of the Central Criminal Court trial of Mrs Catherine Nevin (48), who has pleaded not guilty to the murder of her husband, Tom (54), early on March 19th, 1996, in their home at Jack White's Inn, Ballinapark, Co Wicklow.
She has also denied three counts of soliciting named men to kill him.
The jury heard that gardai found two mobile panic alarm units in Mrs Nevin's bedroom. One was inside a drawer on a table close to her bed and one on the window sill directly behind the bed.
Dr Harbison said he could not establish an exact time of death for Mr Nevin.
The jury has already heard that Mrs Nevin pressed a panic alarm at the inn at 4:27 a.m., by which time Mr Nevin was dead.
Tom Nevin could have been writing when he was shot, Dr Harbison agreed. His pen was still in his right hand when his body was found. Death was rapid, if not instantaneous.
He would have died technically four to five minutes after being shot, but in effect he lost consciousness after 30 seconds and his circulation stopped after half a minute.
There was no sign of a struggle or movement after he fell to the floor.
Earlier in evidence, the ballistics officer, Det. Garda Brennan, said he believed there were nine shot pellets in the cartridge.
The gun used in the killing was a 12-gauge shotgun, "the most common in this country," he said.
The trial continues on Monday.