‘Siobhan was not suicidal at time of death’

THE family of a woman whose husband’s trial for her murder opened at the Central Criminal Court yesterday have told the jury that the deceased was not suicidal at the time of her death.

Brian Kearney, aged 50, with an address at Carnroe, Knocknashee, Goatstown, Dublin, has pleaded not guilty to murdering his wife Siobhan Kearney, aged 38, on February 28, 2006 — his 49th birthday.

Ms Kearney, a mother of one, was found strangled in the upstairs bedroom of the house in Goatstown early that morning.

Niamh McLaughlin, the dead woman’s sister, gave evidence of discovering Siobhan’s son, Daniel, aged three, wandering around the house on his own when she called in to her sister at around 9.30am.

She went upstairs to Siobhan’s bedroom but could not enter as the door was locked. She alerted her parents after getting no response to calling her sister’s name and being unable to see Siobhan through the keyhole.

Siobhan’s mother, Deirdre McLaughlin, said her husband had come down the stairs in a hysterical state after kicking in the bedroom door and finding their daughter dead after arriving at the house at around 10.15am. She then rang Kearney to let him know what had happened.

Under cross-examination by Patrick Gageby SC for Kearney, Ms McLaughlin said her conversation with her son-in-law was very brief, no more than 15 or 16 seconds. She was adamant that she did not end the conversation herself.

“The reason I didn’t say more was because the child was crying in the background,” she said.

She said when Kearney arrived at the scene he told her: “We were going to be together forever.”

She agreed that she had spoken to the paramedics at the scene. “I said maybe she had taken medication. I didn’t know.” Ms McLaughlin said her daughter had been admitted to St John of God’s hospital in 1999.

“She just had a little bit of a breakdown, just over five days, then she was back at work.”

Mr Gageby asked her if she knew what had caused it. “Overwork. No doubt about it.”

Siobhan’s father, Owen McLaughlin, described how he had discovered his daughter’s body after using his feet and shoulder to break down the bedroom door.

“I went over to Siobhan and I put a hand to her forearm and it was very cold. I knew she was dead,” he told the jury of eight women and four men.

He brought Daniel over to Brian Kearney’s parents and his son-in-law had arrived at the house in Goatstown by the time he got back. “His response was he put his hands to his head and he turned his back to me and he said words to the effect of ‘Oh my God’,” recalled Mr McLaughlin.

He said the accused subsequently complained to a doctor that his heart was jumping out of his chest.

“To my mind there was not a lot of emotion,” said Mr McLaughlin. Siobhan’s sister, Brighid McLaughlin, a former Sunday Independent journalist said her sister had come to see her a short while before her death when she had appeared tired but in good spirits.

Ms McLaughlin gave evidence that she knew Siobhan was having marital difficulties and had referred her to her own solicitor to deal with family law matters.

Ms McLaughlin recalled that Siobhan’s husband was already at the house by the time she arrived.

“He came up to me and said, ‘Poor you, Brighid, and all that’s happened to you and Michael’.

“I thought it was a very odd thing to say,” she said, explaining that her husband Michael had died on July 4, 2003. “He sat down and hyperventilated then but it was very strange behaviour.”

Brighid said she had asked what happened to Siobhan. “He said cardiac arrest or strangulation. That was his reply. I’ll never forget it,” she recalled.

In his opening speech to the jury, Vaughan Buckley said the prosecution’s case was that Siobhan Kearney had died from strangulation which had been made to look like suicide.

He told the jury they would hear from experts who would tell them that the vacuum cleaner cord found wrapped around the body could not have borne her weight.

The trial continues today.