The bodies of a man and a woman found in a Co Limerick farmhouse had lain undiscovered for several weeks until the alert was raised by men who broke into the house in the middle of the night to carry out a robbery, according to Garda sources.

Members of a travelling criminal gang called into Newcastlewest Garda station at about 3am on Monday to report their discovery.

Gardaí believe the gang members, who are known to them, had broken into the house with the intention of stealing property and found the bodies when they went upstairs.

“They must have got some shock when they went into the bedroom but, at the same time, they were shrewd enough to realise they had better tell us about it,” said a Garda source.

“They realised that they would have left forensic evidence that we would have been able to trace, so they contacted us as they didn’t want to be linked to the two deaths.”

Gardaí are awaiting the results of further pathology tests to establish how and when the pair died in the house at Boolaglass, near Askeaton. Their bodies were badly decomposed.

The two have been named locally as Thomas Ruttle (56) and Julia Holmes (63).

Fraudster

Ms Holmes, who used dozens of aliases, had more than 20 convictions for fraud and received a 21-month jail sentence in 2009 for fraud offences in Northern Ireland.

In 2006 she was deported from the US where she was convicted in connection with a $500,000 property scam in Texas, which involved seeking investments from friends for non-existent Irish properties.

It is understood Ms Holmes had been living in the Co Limerick farmhouse with Mr Ruttle for two years. The house is on the R518 road between the west Limerick towns of Askeaton and Rathkeale.

The couple were clothed when they were found lying on a bed. Detectives are investigating if a legally held rifle found in the house was connected to their deaths.

Not seen

After the bodies were discovered, the scene was sealed off and an investigation was launched by gardaí at Newcastlewest Garda station who alerted the office of the State Pathologist.

Postmortems carried out yesterday by Dr Marie Cassidy at University Hospital Limerick failed to establish the causes of death and further pathology tests are required. A Garda spokesman also said no positive identification of the bodies was possible.

Ms Holmes, who came from Co Tyrone, was known in the US by her married name Julia Parrish. She pleaded guilty to fraud in Texas more than a decade ago after swindling $517,000 (€458,000) from six friends. She was sentenced to 27 months in prison and agreed to pay the money back.

Ms Holmes, then married to Clyde Thomas Parrish jnr, had promised six investors a return of more than 400 per cent on investment in property in Ireland, taking $392,000 off one person, Dr Dennis Rose.

In 2004, she pleaded guilty to committing wire fraud on December 1st, 2003, one of 12 criminal charges she faced. She was deported to Northern Ireland in 2006.