O’Reilly: Jesus Rachel, what did you do?

JOE O’REILLY’S first words to his murdered wife when her body was discovered were: “Jesus, Rachel — what did you do?”

Rachel’s mother, Rose Callaly, recalled her son-in-law’s reaction in the Central Criminal Court yesterday where he is on trial for her murder. The 35-year-old outdoor advertising contractor denies the charge.

Ms Callaly told the court that Mr O’Reilly phoned her house at lunchtime on October 4, 2004, to ask if anyone knew where Rachel was, as she had failed to pick up their son, Adam, from his montessori school.

“I got concerned because I knew if Rachel was to be late, she would have contacted somebody — me or one of her friends,” she said.

Ms Callaly drove the 20- minute journey to her daughter’s house at Lambay View, Baldarragh, The Naul, Co Dublin, and found the curtains drawn and the patio door open.

She walked around inside, calling Rachel’s name, and then found her body lying on the floor of her bedroom. She became tearful as she recalled what her daughter was wearing — a T-shirt, grey leggings and no shoes. “She often walked around with bare feet,” Ms Callaly said.

“I think the minute I saw her I knew she was dead and I knew she was murdered. I knelt down beside her talking to her and I was rubbing her arms and they were as cold and hard and I knew she had been dead a while.”

She tried to ring the emergency services but could not work the phone. She saw Rachel’s mobile phone on a press and began pushing buttons at random. A man answered and she asked him to get help as she thought her daughter was dead. She did not know who she rang but he took details from her and she thought it was him who rang the ambulance.

When Joe O’Reilly arrived, he knelt down and cleared away items around Rachel’s head but he did not touch her. “The only thing he did was he put his two fingers on her neck to see if there was a pulse. The first words he said to her, which I thought even then was bizarre, was ‘Jesus, Rachel — what did you do?’”

Ms Callaly said in the days that followed, O’Reilly told her and her husband, Jim, to expect rumours that he was having an affair and that they had abused Rachel.

Three weeks later they travelled together to make an appeal on the Late Late Show but O’Reilly left alone afterwards.

The court also heard from Rachel’s best friend, nurse Jacqueline Connor, who also went to the house after O’Reilly phoned her to see if she knew where Rachel was.

Ms O’Connor said O’Reilly was there when she arrived and told her to “go down and see if I could do something”.

She described trying to detect Rachel’s pulse and checking for breathing and any pupil reaction but finding none.

Ms Connor said Rachel often confided in her about her private life.

“She said she wasn’t happy, that family life was suffering, that he [Joe O’Reilly] was working a lot and that she was on her own a lot,” she said.

She said at a birthday party for Adam three weeks later, O’Reilly told her he was afraid he would be framed for Rachel’s murder.

“He said you have to help me prove my innocence. Don’t tell anyone.

“I was shocked. I said do you have an alibi and he said there were a few hours he was not accounted for, but Rachel was.”

The trial resumes before Mr Justice Barry White today.