Husband strangled wife and faked suicide scene, court told

Dublin electrical contractor Brian Kearney strangled his wife Siobhan with a vacuum cleaner flex and staged the scene to look like suicide, it was claimed in court today

The couple were having marital problems when she was killed in their family home in south Dublin while their young son wandered around alone downstairs.

Ms Kearney’s lifeless body was discovered locked in her bedroom by her heartbroken father Owen. There were ligature marks to her neck.

Her 50-year-old husband denies murder.

Opening the case for the prosecution at Dublin’s Central Criminal Court, Denis Vaughan Buckley SC said the couple were getting legal family law advice at the time of the murder.

He said it was the prosecution’s case that Ms Kearney was strangled with the flex from a Dyson which was then pulled over the door of the en suite bathroom and staged to look like suicide, with the key pushed back under the door.

However, he told the jury of eight women and four men that extensive testing later proved her weight, which was 54kgs, would have snapped the cord within five seconds.

“She did not commit suicide,” said the lawyer for the state

“There was no evidence to suggest she was suicidal at that time.”

The prosecution told the court Mrs Kearney’s younger sister Niamh McLaughlin called to the family home on in Carnroe, Knocknashee, Goatstown, at 9.35am on Tuesday, February 28, 2006, an hour later than usual.

Her three-year-old nephew was wandering around the house alone and her sister’s bedroom door was locked.

Ms McLaughlin called her parents Deirdre and Owen, who broke down the bedroom door.

Mr Vaughan Buckley said when Mr McLaughlin found his daughter the flex was entwined around her cold body, and not her neck, but she had ligature marks to her neck and abrasions on her chest.

A post mortem exam revealed Ms Kearney died from ligature strangulation and suffered extensive bruising consistent with significant force to her neck.

“He knew she was dead,” he said.

The court heard Mrs McLaughlin rang her son-in-law and told him to come home because something terrible had happened – but he never asked what.

Mr Vaughan Buckley said when the accused came home he said to the victim’s sister Brighid – whose husband Michael took his own life two years ago – ’it looks like the same thing happened again’.

“Then he started hyperventilating,” added the barrister.

Mr Vaughan Buckley said the jury would hear evidence that Mr Kearney, who ran his own company, visited a supplier at 7.55am on the morning in question – more than an hour earlier than usual – and that a solicitor would confirm he had been involved with the Kearney’s for family law issues.

However, the barrister added that it was the duty of the state to prove the case beyond reasonable doubt, stressing that it relied substantially on circumstantial evidence.

Trial judge Mr Justice Barry White warned the jury that the case would attract a certain amount of media attention and not to discuss the case with family or friends, but to come to a final decision themselves.

Siobhan’s parents, her sisters Brighid, a well-known journalist, Deirdre, Aisling, Caroline, Ann Marie and Niamh and brother Owen Jnr were all in courtroom three for the opening, which was delayed twice last week after problems arose with the book of evidence and jury selection.

Patrick Gageby SC is representing Mr Kearney during the hearing, which is expected to last up to five weeks.