Gardaí reopen cold case into murder after 25 years

Gardaí have reopened a 25-year-old case of the murder of an elderly widow in the hope of catching the killer who strangled her before torching her home.

The partly burned body of 79-year-old Nancy Smyth was discovered in her small cottage on Wolf Tone St in Kilkenny in Sep 1987 by firemen, who found her pet dog dead beside her.

In RTÉ’s Crimecall tonight, Ms Smyth’s nephew Des Murphy is pleading with the public to come forward with any information that could help solve his aunt’s murder.

“It seems incomprehensible that it could have happened to somebody like her, so small, petite, and a nice lady, well thought of in society,” he said.

Crimecall will reconstruct Ms Smyth’s last movements, piecing together the events leading up to the discovery of her body in the early hours of the morning.

On the night she was murdered, Sep 11, 1987, the recently widowed Kilkenny woman had been socialising in O’Gorman’s Pub near her home.

Ms Smyth, who had lost her husband Dick the previous December, had taken a lift home from her local barman.

Soon after she arrived home, she was seen having an argument with a male, and at 5.05am a passer-by saw flames coming out of her sitting room window.

Firemen discovered her body on the sitting room floor but an autopsy revealed she had been strangled before her home was set alight.

Local barwoman Anne Leharte, who was a friend of Ms Smyth, said the Kilkenny woman was a huge part of the local community.

“She was about four foot four, a jolly little woman,” said Ms Leharte. “When she would come into the bar, if there was something going on she wanted to be kind of in the middle of it.

“She was kind of part and parcel of the bar and bar life, parish life. She never put in or out on anybody. She was a joy really to come in. When she’d come in, you’d enjoy seeing her come in.”

She said her father always used to make sure she got safely home after the death of her husband less than a year earlier.

Ms Leharte said the local community hopes the gardaí will finally be able to catch the culprit, 25 years later, with the reopening of the case.

Crimecall is also set to reveal details of a reward being offered for any information on the murder.

* Crimecall will be shown on RTÉ One at 10.15pm.