Jury hears of O'Reilly's 'unhappy marriage'
The marriage of Joe and Rachel O'Reilly was not a happy one, a jury in the Central Criminal Court heard today.
Jacqueline O'Connor, a nurse, who had been a close friend of the deceased since they were in secondary school, told prosecuting counsel, Mr Denis Vaughan Buckley SC, that Mrs O'Reilly would often confide in her.
She said the last time she saw the deceased was on the Friday October 1, 2004 and that she was in "fairly good spirits".
But she said that on one occasion, the deceased told her their marriage "wasn't happy" and that "the family was suffering".
She also said Mrs O'Reilly was 'often on her own' because the accused worked so hard.
On the day of the killing, Ms Connor said she arrived home from a night shift and went to bed. She woke up when Mr O'Reilly called to ask whether she had seen the deceased.
After temporarily falling back to sleep, she became concerned about her friend and decided to call out to her house.
When she walked into the kitchen at around 2.20pm, Mr O'Reilly was there with Mrs Callaly and a neighbour.
She said all of them looked shocked and tables and chairs were overturned.
The accused asked her to go to the bedroom to see whether she could do anything.
"I saw Rachel's body lying at the door of the bedroom. There was loads of congealed blood around her head and a gash to the right side of her head. I checked for a pulse. Her hand was cold. I felt nothing," she said.
She noticed the bedroom was untidy, that drawers had been pulled out, and that there were blood splatterings high up on the wall.
As she left the room, she looked across to the boys' room, where she noticed a bloodstained box of books.
Ms O'Connor also described an incident on October 25 when the accused asked her to help him prove his innocence.
She said she went back to his mother's house after his Adam's birthday party and that when they began speaking about the murder, he told her he thought he was being framed.
When she asked him whether he had an alibi, he replied, "There are just a few hours I was not accounted for but Rachel was."
She described Mrs O'Reilly as: "Outgoing and active. She was a very caring person. Very sporty. She was also very self-sufficient. She worked one day a week in a solicitors in Donnybrook".
She also said the deceased worked as an agent for Avon and Tupperware and that she would often buy products from her.
The deceased had also told her about a key she kept under a pot at the back door, but that she never used it.
Naomi Garrigan, a mother whose child attended the same Montessori as Mrs O'Reilly's son Adam said she saw Rachel at the crèche on the morning she was killed.
The following week, she saw Mr O'Reilly outside the crèche and she decided to tell him how sorry she was for his loss.
"I said if he ever needed anything, or any help with the children, I could help," she said.
She said she saw him on a couple of occasions with their children after that.
At her own son's birthday party on November 5, Mr O'Reilly offered to lend her dumbbells to help ease the pain in her arm she had told him about.
Asked by Mr Vaughan Buckley what she felt about him offering her dumbbells, she replied: "To be honest, I panicked. Because that's what the speculation was in the newspapers, so I got a bit of a shock."
After that, she said she collected Adam a few times from the crèche.
On November 9, when Mr O'Reilly met her at the Little Chef restaurant to collect his son, he told her he was going to be arrested but denied any involvement in the killing.
He also warned her that the papers were saying they were having an affair.
She said that she "got very upset" and that she went home to her husband. "I thought I was doing a good thing," she said.
She said the next contact she had with the accused was when she heard two people had been arrested in relation to the killing.
She explained: "I texted him and said everything was going to be OK. Then he texted back and said 'as long as they get the right people'."
Rachel O'Reilly's husband, Joe O'Reilly (aged 35) of Lambay View, Baldarragh, Naul, Co Dublin has pleaded not guilty to murdering the 30 year-old mother-of-two at their family home on October 4, 2004.
