Jury shown text evidence in murder trial of Derry man

A Derry man on trial for the murder of the 30-year-old mother of his unborn son threatened to smash a phone over her head a fortnight before she was killed.

Father-of-one Stephen Cahoon (aged 37) of Harvey Street, Derry has pleaded not guilty to the murder of his ex-girlfriend, Jean Teresa Quigley. However, he admits killing the mother-of-four at her home at Cornshell Fields, Shantallow, Derry on July 26, 2008.

“You better not be up there texting anyone about me or I’ll go up and smash that f**king phone over your head,” he texted her around 6.10pm on July 11, 2008.

The jury had been given print outs of messages between the pair, prepared by Kieran Doohan, a mobile phone expert with Forensic Science in the North..

“Why did I hear you only got pregnant to me to get back at someone else?” he texted her around 3am the following morning.

The jury had already heard that he was at a party in a friend’s house when he sent the latter message. Ms Quigley had not gone with him as they had broken up that day following a row.

However messages between the two sent earlier on the 11 were loving and affectionate.

“Enjoy yourself. Love you,” Ms Quigley texted him around 11.30 that morning.

More amicable text messages began again just over a week later.

“I don’t know Jean, honestly. You don’t know how much I regret it,” he texted her in the early hours of July 20. “I really enjoyed tonight. I didn’t want it to end,” he wrote a couple of hours later.

The defendant texted love poems to the deceased the following night, one he said he had written himself.

At 1.41am on July 23, Mr Cahoon sent her a long text about how much he loved her.

“I just want to grow old with you... You’ve got something special compared to any other woman I’ve known. You just do something to me. I’m just crazy about you. I can’t see what I’m writing because of the tears ,” he wrote.

“I’m cried out... You know I’d be a good father to our baby. I can’t wait to give him or her all my love,” he wrote an hour later. The court had already heard that Ms Quigley was 10 weeks pregnant when strangled to death.

A friend of Mr Cahoon told the court that he threatened to throw himself off a bridge about two weeks before Ms Quigley died.

“He was shouting it over and over to himself,” recalled Sandra Wilson. “He had a few drinks.”

For this reason, she explained, she was extremely worried about him on the Saturday Ms Quigley died but before her death was discovered.

She said she had been out with him the night before, when he seemed down, and that she had been unable to contact him from 3.22am right throughout that day.

“I thought he might have done something to himself,” she explained.

Crime scene investigator William McMullen said he found a pair of nylon straps with chains attached when he searched Mr Cahoon’s flat on July 27. He also recovered a roll of tape and a carrier bag containing handcuffs and baby oil.

The trial continues before Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy and a jury of seven women and five men.