Boy pleads for his life - jury told

Moments before an eight year-old boy was strangled and suffocated to death he pleaded with his mother, saying "I want to live, I want to live".

Robert Costello died shortly afterwards at his home in Deerpark, Mullinavat, Co Kilkenny on October 28, 2000. At the Central Criminal Court this morning Sgt Michael O’Sullivan was giving evidence at the third day of the trial of Jacqueline Costello who denies his murder.

Sgt O’Sullivan read a statement the accused made to the gardai describing the tragic events leading to Robert’s death.

"I don’t know what happened, I said to Robert, just sit there, sit down, please just sit there," she said.

She had been cleaning the house and said her children were laughing at her.

"They were running around me, I had no rest at all, I just wanted to clean up and be normal," she told the gardai.

The court heard that a mobile phone rang and she said to the gardai that she decided ‘that’s it’. She told Martin, her three year-old boy to stay in the hall and put her youngest child into a buggy.

"(I said to Robert), you know what has to be done, take some sleeping tablets". He said, "I don't want them, I want to live, I want to live".

"You’ll be grand and you’ll be doing us all a favour - I don’t know where I got the strength, I put my hand around his throat, I just made sure he died," she continued. The accused told gardai that poignantly "the cat came in and sat on his heart".

"I couldn’t look, I felt so sick - I just couldn’t believe what happened to me". When gardai asked Ms Costello if she also covered the young boy’s mouth, she replied, "No, I don’t remember putting my hand over his mouth at any stage".

The trial continues today before Mr Justice Paul Butler and a jury of four men and seven women.