I had to identify my friend’s body by her glittery nail polish
Anguish of tourist who survived beach massacre
A SURVIVOR of the Tunisia beach massacre identified her friend’s body by the ‘glittery nail varnish on her toes’, an inquest heard yesterday.
Carol Anne Powell escaped the killer by playing dead but Trudy Jones was shot in the neck and chest as she lay on a sun lounger.
In the following days Miss Powell attended the mortuary where the victims’ bodies had been taken and was shown photographs.
Samantha Leek QC, counsel to the inquest at the Royal Courts of Justice, said: ‘She initially did not see anyone who looked like Trudy. A couple of hours later she saw a photograph that looked like her.’
Miss Powell was then shown a body which corresponded with that picture. Miss Leek said: ‘She recognised the glittery nail varnish on her toes.’
Miss Jones, 51, a divorced grandmother of eight from South Wales, was one of 30 British holidaymakers shot dead by Isis gunman Seifeddine Rezgui during the attack in the resort of Sousse on June 26, 2015.
Miss Powell said her friend had gone to sunbathe in her favourite spot on
‘Terrible explosion’
the beach with a sun lounger pulled close to the sea. She had decided to stay by the pool at the five-star Riu Imperial Marhaba Hotel but then heard ‘the most terrible explosion’.
She said: ‘It came from behind me, towards the beach area. It was the loudest noise you could ever hear.
‘I wanted to check on Trudy, but people were running towards me shouting, “Go, go”. I started to run towards the hotel with the crowds.’
Miss Powell said she was caught up in the ‘chaos’ and ended up in the hotel car park. ‘At that point I just decided to play dead. I laid down on my front with my arms stretched. It felt like hours,’ she said.
She was later picked up by a Tunisian man – who she initially thought was the terrorist – who carried her to the safety of a nearby hotel. ‘I am desperate to find out who he is because he saved me,’ she added.
Witnesses told how Rezgui, a 23year-old engineering student who was later shot dead, was ‘very calm’, as if he ‘was doing a normal job’, when he shot his 38 victims with an automatic weapon he had hidden under a parasol.
He also threw grenades around ‘like confetti,’ according to Mark Hornby, a holidaymaker who was friends with Miss Jones.
Two other victims shot while sunbathing, Janet and John Stocker, aged 63 and 74, from Morden, Surrey, were thought to have been among the first holidaymakers targeted by Rezgui.
Witness Anthony Miller said he and his wife Julie were good friends with the couple and spent much of the 2015 holiday in each other’s company.
In a statement read to the inquest, Mr Miller said: ‘I heard what I thought were firecrackers going off. I looked up and saw the man standing over Janet and John had something in his hands.
‘I thought, “I don’t believe this is happening.” It seemed to me he was not very good with the gun. He seemed to have a job controlling it.
‘He was swinging it side to side. I think that may have saved us. I could hear people shouting and screaming. I knew Julie wouldn’t be able to run so I threw her in between our sunbeds and lay on top of her. I pushed her into the sand and told her to play dead.’
Describing what he saw of the Stockers, he said: ‘I thought John was alive. Janet had slumped forward, half on and half off the sunbed. She was dead. They must have been the first to be shot. They didn’t stand a chance.’
The inquest continues today.