‘I always knew Joe O’Reilly killed my daughter

The mother of murdered Rachel Callaly says she thinks of what the world lost when her daughter was taken from it — every day.

Today is the 10th anniversary of Rachel’s murder. Her mother, Rose Callaly, discovered her bloody and battered body.

“It was something you would never, ever forget — that morning,” Rose told RTÉ’s Sean O’Rourke yesterday.

Rose said she never had any doubt that her daughter’s husband, Joe O’Reilly, had killed her in their family home in the Naul, Co Dublin.

Joe O’Reilly received a life sentence in 2007 after being convicted of his wife’s murder.

Rose said he arrived in the house shortly after she discovered Rachel’s body.

“I will always remember running out when I heard his car pull up — I did not want him to bring the children in, to walk in on that scene.”

The day after Rachel, a mother of two, was buried, the police had asked O’Reilly to go back to the house and identify items that were reported stolen. After getting back the keys to the house, O’Reilly telephoned Rose to say he felt a great sense of peace being back in the house — and thought it would do her good to come over.

“I went. But I walked out of the house that day knowing, without a shadow of a doubt, that he did it.”

Rose said she knew O’Reilly had murdered her daughter because of the way he talked about it. He also played messages he had left on the house phone the day she was killed.

Rose also believes her daughter communicated with her from beyond the grave, so she would know who killed her.

In the end, it was O’Reilly’s mobile phone that linked him with the murder.

Rose said she could not forgive him for what he had done. “If I thought that he genuinely had remorse and I felt that he was sorry, [I could]. But I know he is a manipulative, cunning person and... is incapable of remorse.”

She knew that if he did say he was sorry, it would be a means to an end.

Rose and Jim, who had five children, marked the anniversaries of both their daughters Rachel, 30, and Ann, 31, who died from cancer in September 2010, with a special Mass last Friday.

Rose said they would probably visit Rachel’s grave today. She tries not to think of the day her daughters died. “We miss them and, God love them. I’d love to have them back, even for one minute.”