Nurse Died of Blows to the Head : Crime: An autopsy indicates that a heavy object was used in the homicide. Police still have no suspects.

An autopsy confirmed on Monday that a nurse found dead in her estranged husband’s house over the weekend was killed by several blows to the head with a heavy object, police said.

The body of Donna J. Connaty, 34, was found by her father-in-law Sunday morning. The woman was still wearing her blue-and-white nurse’s uniform and had a stethoscope around her neck, Buena Park Police Sgt. Terry Branum said.

A smashed plastic watch was found near her wrist, its hands stopped at 1 o’clock, Branum said. The victim’s purse had been emptied; there was no cash remaining and the living room and one bedroom had been ransacked, he said.

Connaty finished work at St. Joseph Hospital in Orange at 9 a.m. Saturday. Branum said the fact that she was still wearing her uniform could mean that she surprised an intruder when she got home, that someone was waiting for her or that she was followed home from the hospital.

“It’s pretty vague, there are a whole lot of ways it could go,” Branum said.

Connaty’s husband, Richard P. Connaty, 38, had not yet had a chance to walk through the house to determine if anything was missing, Branum added.

The Connatys had been in the midst of contentious divorce proceedings, and police had been called to the house in the 7700 block of Jackson Way to quell domestic arguments on several occasions.

But police said Richard Connaty is not a suspect in his wife’s murder. The husband, a diesel mechanic for Lucky Stores, has told detectives that he left on Friday for a weekend in the desert with the couple’s children--ages 6, 8 and 10--and did not return until Sunday afternoon, after his wife’s body had been found, Branum said.

“We’ll follow up on it, but the detectives said after interviewing him that he’s not a suspect, at least not initially,” Branum said.

Richard Connaty could not be reached for comment.

The couple’s divorce had been tentatively approved but was not yet final. According to court papers filed Feb. 5, Donna Connaty had custody of the children while Richard had visitation rights until a final custody agreement could be worked out.

Connaty had been living in a house with her mother nearby on Jackson Way, police said, but since her husband was out of town, she had returned to the couple’s home on Saturday after work.

Court documents indicate that the couple had a stormy relationship dating back to 1989.

In April of that year, Connaty complained that her husband had beaten her, verbally abused her and their children “for years,” and once kicked their oldest boy, now 10, across the yard.

“He once used my 6-year-old, he was 4 then, as a mop to clean up the water he spilled in the kitchen,” she wrote.

A judge granted Connaty’s request for a temporary restraining order, forbidding her husband to bother her or the three children.

But when her husband agreed to receive counseling, Connaty allowed him to move back in, and the court order was lifted just two weeks after it was issued, according to court documents.

Donna Connaty filed for divorce on June 27, 1989.