A young Dublin woman was found dead in her bedroom by her mother last year after she had taken drugs while out socialising the night before.
An inquest into the death of Laura Bermingham-McCrossan (21) heard evidence that she had been given cocaine by a stranger in a pub but felt particularly strange after consuming cannabis jellies later that night.
However, postmortem results showed no trace of cannabis in the deceased’s body.
The young apprentice hairdresser was found in an unresponsive state in her bedroom by her mother, Elaine Bermingham, at their home at Stocking Well Wood, Rathfarnham, Dublin on the morning of February 13th, 2023.
The deceased’s cousin, Kelly Burford, told a sitting of Dublin District Coroner’s Court how she and Laura had gone for a few drinks in a pub in Rathfarnham the previous evening before deciding to head into town.
Ms Burford said they were in a pub in the Camden Street area when two males at an adjoining table invited them to join them.
She gave evidence that one of the men produced a small bag of cocaine after Laura had asked them if they had the drug.
Ms Burford said she and her cousin went into a cubicle in the toilets where the deceased had three “sniffs” of cocaine, while she had one.
They decided to go to another nearby pub for more drinks before returning to Laura’s house where her cousin saw a male passing by and asked him if he had any weed.
He had no drugs on him but returned about ten minutes later with “edibles".
Ms Burford said she and Laura each consumed three and a half cannabis jellies and they both felt strange and tired within minutes.
The following morning, she explained how she could not wake her cousin and had a feeling that something was wrong before going into a state of shock.
Ms Burford admitted that she still felt “out of it” from the effects of the cannabis jellies.
She recalled her own father arriving at the house but said she was still very sleepy and “oblivious to the whole situation.”
She told the coroner, Aisling Gannon, they had looked for drugs because they were “just bored".
Ms Burford recalled she wanted a joint while Laura wanted “coke".
Asked about the amount of cocaine they were given, she replied that it “sounded like a lot, but it wasn’t.”
She claimed they both felt fine after taking the cocaine and were OK until they took the cannabis jellies when they started to feel “very unusual".
Asked by Laura's mother, Elaine Bermingham, if her daughter had taken cocaine before, Ms Burford said she had seen the deceased take the drug on one previous occasion.
Ms Bermingham gave evidence that her daughter had broken up with her boyfriend a few months earlier after being together for four years.
While Laura had been upset, Ms Bermingham said she believed she was coping well.
She recalled advising her daughter about the responsibility of being a single person and warning her about being too trusting when some people might not have her best interests at heart.
Ms Bermingham said her daughter looked fine when she got home at around 1.45am.
“She was a little bit merry but nothing to concern me,” she recalled.
The following morning, Ms Bermingham said she went upstairs to wake her niece for work.
She found her asleep in her daughter’s bedroom with both cousins still wearing the clothes they had gone out in the previous night.
Ms Bermingham said she was shouting their names but getting no answers.
She described screaming out loud after realising her daughter was dead when she went to brush her hair away from her face.
Fighting back tears, Ms Bermingham remarked: “I knew Laura was gone.”
The inquest heard her niece came around but started having what Ms Bermingham described as seizures.
She told the coroner that she did not know if her daughter had taken the cocaine due to peer pressure or if she had wanted the drug.
Ms Bermingham said she wondered if Laura had taken it as “a coping mechanism” for the break-up with her boyfriend.
She stressed that her daughter was not a drug user and would not buy drugs but had been on a night out that “went horribly wrong, and she came across the wrong people".
Ms Bermingham described her daughter as “ballsy, generous, kind and funny” and someone who had “the best laugh".
She also criticised the lack of contact from gardaí since her daughter’s death, despite having many questions that she would like answered.
Her son, Conor Bermingham-McCrossan, told the court that he thought his sister and cousin were fine but just under the influence of alcohol when he gave them a lift home from Camden Street at around 1:15am.
The witness said he was unaware they had consumed any drugs that night.
The inquest heard Detective Superintendent Sé McCormack of the Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau had become involved in the case as it was suspected that Ms Bermingham may have died after having consumed illicit edible drugs.
In a written statement, Det Supt McCormack said gardaí were trying to establish if there was a link between her death and other cases where the consumption of illicit drugs had led to overdoses requiring hospitalisation.
He noted that the HSE had issued a warning the previous month to raise concern about the public health risk associated with synthetic cannabinoids appearing in cannabis and THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) edibles.
The coroner said a postmortem found evidence of cocaine, alcohol and a prescription medicine in the deceased’s body.
Ms Gannon confirmed that there was no identifiable substance in Laura’s system that could be linked to the cannabis jellies.
In reply to questions from the deceased’s family, the coroner stressed that the toxicology tests were “very reliable".
However, Ms Gannon said she understood the family’s confusion given the evidence in the case.
“I’m conscious that there are many questions we have not been able to address or answer,” the coroner remarked.
She reassured Laura’s mother that her daughter would not have suffered any pain.
Ms Gannon recorded a verdict of death by misadventure after finding that Laura had died from multi-drug toxicity.
The coroner said she would also share the family’s concerns arising from the case with An Garda Síochána.
