Cork apartment murder accused 'heard whispering' by neighbour

Two men accused of murdering a woman in a neighbouring apartment in Cork were heard whispering in their flat before she was killed and were seen leaving the block afterwards, a court heard today.

A garda ballistics specialist told the court a piece of electrical cable that was allegedly used to strangle the victim, which was found in a courtyard outside their apartment, belonged to a lamp discovered by gardaí in the victim's bedroom.

The Central Criminal Court heard Thomas Penkert (21) and Brian Walsh (22) were seen leaving the flats - which one resident described as a "dangerous place" - two hours after Nora Kiely (46) was strangled to death.

Ms Kiely was found strangled in her flat, naked from the waist down with a small black-handled knife under her hand.

The court heard the Penkert and Walsh were living in a flat on Leitrim St and were heard whispering "excessively" that night by the tenant in the adjacent flat, Sean Feeley.

Mr Feeley, a former US resident who came to live in Ireland in 1998, said the apartments were dangerous flats in a dangerous area and many "weird" things happened on the night Ms Kiely was killed – July 15, 2002.

He said he spoke to Penkert and Walsh in the doorway of their flat for up to an hour on the night before he returned to his own flat and tried unsuccessfully to hear what they were saying through his unit's "paper-thin" wall.

Asked by counsel for Mr Walsh, Niamh Stewart, why he wanted to hear what was said, Mr Feeley said the flats were the kind of place where "you have to keep your head or you are not going to be alive any longer".

The owner of the flats, Pat Ryan, told the court he saw Penkert and Walsh leaving the building about 11.30pm – two hours after it is alleged Ms Kiely was killed – when he was investigating an attempted break-in at one of the flats.

Detective Garda Brian Barry told the court the piece of flex found in the courtyard was originally connected to a lamp with a broken cord found in Ms Kiely's apartment.

Both Penkert and Walsh have pleaded not guilty to Ms Kiely's murder. But they have both admitted robbing Ms Kiely of less than €20 in cash and two items of jewellery.

The two men have denied a charge that they attempted to enter another flat in the building with intent to inflict grievous bodily harm on another neighbour, Ms Teresa Tatton, on July 15, 2002.

Penkert and Walsh have pleaded guilty to stealing a blue-handled knife, a tub of butter, some groceries and drinks and a phone charger from Ms Tatton's address.

But they pleaded not guilty to a charge that between July 8 and 14, 2002, they robbed Donal Scannell - another resident of the Leitrim St building - of less than €70 in cash.

Mr Scannell, who the court heard was a heavy drinker, said that in the week before Ms Kiely's death, Penkert and Walsh robbed him of €60-€70 in cash after one of them "put something around his neck" in his apartment.

The trial continues tomorrow before Mr Justice Diarmuid O'Donovan and a jury of six men and six women.