A mother-of-three whose death was initially ruled a suicide was actually staged by her cheating husband, who incapacitated her before setting the scene and lying to police, a coroner has found.
Some 14 years after Helen Bird was found dead in the garage of her Blackmans Bay home in Tasmania, a coroner delivered the explosive finding into her suspected suicide on Friday.
Mrs Bird was found by her husband, Mark Bird, at around 11.30am on July 8, 2010.
Her death was initially ruled a suicide by a coroner in 2011, who found that no other person, including Mr Bird, contributed to her death.
But coroner Robert Webster said this was not true and ruled that Bird had “incapacitated” the palliative care nurse probably using toxic fumes.
Webster discovered that Bird caused her death by asphyxiation and staged the scene to make it look like a suicide by placing her phone, a photograph and a letter on a nearby bench in the garage.
“There is no evidence that Ms. Bird mentioned or threatened suicide, and there is no evidence of suicidal ideation,” Webster said in his findings.
“Therefore, there was no reason for her to experiment with ropes or other methods of harming herself and for that experiment to go wrong, leading to her death by accident or misadventure.”
Helen Bird was found dead in her Blackmans Bay home in 2010. Her death was initially ruled a suicide, but a coroner ruled that her husband, Mark, was involved in her death. Image: Supplied
Mr Bird has never been charged over his wife’s death and “absolutely rejects” the claim he was involved.
In his published decision, Mr Webster described Mr Bird not only as a lying witness, but also as a “lying person”.
“The evidence establishes that Ms Bird’s children were her life,” Mr Webster said.
“She would not have left them behind, especially with someone (Mr Bird) who was incapable of properly caring for himself, let alone his children.”
The court was told that Mr Bird had told police his wife did not drink much, but in a sworn statement he said his wife had been drinking a lot of gin on the night of her death.
Webster found that Bird had also given false impressions about the true state of their marriage, including accusations of physical violence and that the couple was experiencing “significant” financial stress.
At the time of his wife’s death, Mr Bird was having an affair with another woman.
Bird, who claimed to have found his wife after returning home from a shopping trip, made a series of calls and text messages to his wife in the morning in an “artificial” attempt to provide an alibi, Webster said.
“Mr. Bird was a much bigger person than Ms. Bird,” he said.
“He was bigger than her and was taller. Therefore, he was clearly stronger than her.
“There is evidence that Mr. Bird could be verbally and physically aggressive, including comments that he wanted to get rid of people he didn’t like, and he was physically and verbally aggressive toward his family.”
Webster said he was satisfied “given the exclusion of all other hypotheses and evidence against Mr Bird, that he was involved” in his wife’s death.
He also criticized the police investigation into Bird’s death, calling it “inadequate.”
“Investigating police should not accept what they are told or what appears at the scene,” he said.
“A death like this should be treated as a suspicious death until investigations conclusively prove otherwise.”
He offered his condolences to Ms Bird’s family and friends who felt her loss.