‘Closure’ for family in cold case murder

Nephew chokes back tears as man convicted of strangling elderly woman and setting house on fire

A ‘cold case’ investigation has solved a 30-year-old murder after a jury returned a guilty verdict against a man for strangling an elderly woman to death before setting her house on fire.

John Joseph Malone, aged 53, of Newpark, Kilkenny City, was found guilty yesterday of the murder of Ann ‘Nancy’ Smyth, 69, on September 11, 1987, at her home on Wolfe Tone St, Kilkenny.