Man gets life for murder of nanny, 30
Robert Corbet, aged 25, of Capoley/Sheffield Cross, Portlaoise, had pleaded not guilty to murdering the Ballyroan native in his garage.
However, the haulier admitted her manslaughter between October 25 and November 7, when her body was found in a barrel, buried 3m below ground behind his home.
His Central Criminal Court trial heard that they had met a few months earlier and that she had soon told him that she was pregnant with his child.
The jury saw transcripts of some of the thousands of phone messages between them. Some of these referred to the pregnancy.
Corbet testified that he had his doubts about the pregnancy because he had no medical proof. He said he questioned her about it on the evening of October 25 while they were in his shed. He said she threatened to ruin his life, business, and reputation if he did not face up to it, and that these threats caused him to snap, see red and lose self-control.
He said he caught Ms Phelan around the neck, they fell, he released his grip, struck her over the back of the head, and resumed strangling her. He said she was motionless by the time he covered her head with a plastic bag and tightened two cable ties around her neck. He told gardaí that he had done this to make sure she was dead.
He then put her body in a barrel, sealed it, and mopped up blood before washing his hands and driving to Dublin Airport to collect a friend.
He later returned home, watched television, and went to bed, the barrel containing her body still in the shed. He said he rolled that barrel into a pit on his property the following morning and the jury was shown CCTV footage from his haulage yard.
It showed a van reversing out of shot, into the area where Ms Phelan’s body was found. The same van was seen driving back into shot with its rear doors open.
More footage showed a truck reversing to the same area and emptying a load of filling gravel, and a forklift containing building material was seen moving in that direction later.
Corbet admitted that he had asked unsuspecting friends to fill in the pit.
Corbet then flew to New York to visit a former girlfriend as planned. He agreed with gardaí that Ms Phelan had been a complication to him getting back together with this ex-girlfriend.
Ms Phelan’s parents reported her missing that day and gardaí contacted Corbet in New York. He denied involvement while there and on his return. He made admissions only after detectives put his phone records to him.
He continued to lie, though, telling them that he had killed her in his jeep and dumped her body in a river. He finally told the truth after they excavated the crime scene. He said he had lied about the location of the body in order to protect his mother’s home.
An autopsy showed Ms Phelan died of asphyxia due to strangulation, with blunt force trauma a contributory factor. She had not been pregnant.
The defence had asked for a verdict of manslaughter by reason of provocation and asked the jury to ignore the desecration of her body.
However, the jury agreed with the prosecution that there was no provocation. The State had described what he did as deliberate and calculated.
The nine men and three women of the jury reached a majority guilty verdict of 10 to 2 after four and a half hours of deliberations.
Corbet put his head in his hands after the verdict was read out.
The victim’s brother, Daire Phelan, delivered a victim impact statement on behalf of her parents, five brothers and six sisters.
Her mother, Betty, described her daughter as beautiful and vibrant. She said she did not recognise her daughter when she went to the hospital to identify her, as her face was black and blue. She explained that she had to have a closed casket at her funeral.
Mr Justice Garrett Sheehan imposed the mandatory life sentence on Corbet, who had no previous convictions.
