Macroom murder: Unanimous guilty verdict ends tale of misery and violence

Mary O’Driscoll the sister of the late Timmy Foley reading a victim impact statement after the murder trial at Anglesea Street court in Cork today. Picture Dan Linehan. 

Just over two years since gardaí found a 44-year-old man dying in a pool of blood in a house in Macroom after being stabbed 28 times, his ex-wife was today found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment.

On the 13th day of the trial and after deliberating for six hours and 17 minutes commencing last Friday afternoon, the jury of seven women and five men at the Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork returned today with their unanimous guilty verdict.

The prosecution had urged the jury to consider the passion in comments of the accused that if she could not have him nobody could while the defence stressed a long history of abuse of her by the deceased.

O’Driscoll said the late Timmy Foley told her she would be leaving the house that night in a body bag.

The dead man’s brother who was there at the time testified that she kept ‘pucking’ him and it was only after a while that he could see she had a knife in her hand.

In most murder trials the victim is the silent witness who speaks most loudly through the post-mortem report.

Rita O’Driscoll told gardaí she was attacked by Timmy Foley who stabbed her in the head with the knife, she got it from him and stabbed him no more than twice in self-defence. File picture: John Delea

However, in this case the jury did hear the voice of the dead man. An emergency call was made by his brother at the height of the bloody and disputed incident at Dan Corkery Place on October 8, 2018.

The jury heard a recording of this call and the voices in the background. Indeed, late in their deliberations they asked for the recording to be played again for them in their jury room.

Timmy Foley is heard saying: "Rita, stop will you… please get help will you."

Rita O’Driscoll told gardaí she was attacked by Timmy Foley who stabbed her in the head with the knife, she got it from him and stabbed him no more than twice in self-defence.

But Siobhán Lankford SC for the prosecution asked the jury to consider her claim that she was only defending herself and to ask if she had continued what could be deemed acceptable in terms of self-defence.

Ms Lankford also challenged Rita O’Driscoll’s claim that it was Jason Foley who stabbed his own brother 26 times. The prosecution claimed that Rita O’Driscoll’s story changed a number of times when she was blaming Jason Foley for inflicting 26 stab wounds. 

She said the brothers argued over a bottle of vodka. But she also said Jason Foley intervened to protect her from Timmy Foley. The prosecution said these varying accounts given by Rita O’Driscoll conflicted with each other.

The prosecution also urged the jury to consider the passion in comments from O’Driscoll including one to the effect that if she could not have her husband then nobody could, and that she would throw petrol on him and set him on fire.

Defence senior counsel Roderick O’Hanlon argued that what Rita O’Driscoll did that night was self-defence and that her belief was, “I did not think I would get out alive”. Mr O’Hanlon explained that if the jury found she was simply defending herself then the appropriate verdict was not guilty.

He said that if the issue of provocation arose then this allowed a partial defence and there could be a finding of not guilty of murder, guilty of manslaughter.

“Her response seems to have been explosive. She acquired the knife and responded with a loss of control and stabbed Timmy,” Mr O’Hanlon said.

"Timmy Foley has a history of producing a knife. He was convicted within the year of producing a knife on a bus and he was banned from buses in Macroom."

In their consideration of the issues he asked them to look at what he described as a long history of abuse, the attack on her by Jason Foley, Timmy Foley laughing in response, and the deceased man then stabbing her in the head with a knife. 

He referred to the defendant being threatened by Timmy Foley that, “You will leave here in a bodybag.”