Moments before an eight-year-old boy was strangled and suffocated to death, he pleaded for his life saying to his mother "I want to live, I want to live".
A murder trial jury heard yesterday that Robert Costello died shortly afterwards at his home in Deerpark, Mullinavat, Co Kilkenny, on October 28th, 2000.
Sgt Michael O'Sullivan read to the Central Criminal Court from statements made by his mother, Ms Jacqueline Costello (30), to gardaí. The woman, from Woodlawn Grove, Waterford has pleaded not guilty to his murder.
In the statement, Ms Costello said she had been cleaning the house and her children were laughing at her. "They were running around me, I had no rest at all, I just wanted to clean up and be normal," she told gardaí
"I don't know what happened. (I said to Robert) you know what has to be done, take some sleeping tablets." He said: "I don't want them, I want to live, I want to live." "You'll be grand and you'll be doing us all a favour," the statement continued.
"I don't know where I got the strength, I put my hand around his throat, I just made sure he died," she continued. "I couldn't look, I felt so sick. I just couldn't believe what happened to me."
When gardaí asked Ms Costello if she also covered the boy's mouth, she replied, "No, I don't remember putting my hand over his mouth at any stage."
Robert's father and Ms Costello's partner for more than 11 years, Mr Stephen O'Keeffe, described the mother of his three boys as "second-to-none" and said "she wasn't there" during the time of these events.
Mr O'Keeffe told of the "good family life" he shared with her and said that despite times of depression and "the baby blues", things were once "absolutely perfect".
He told Ms Miriam Reynolds SC, prosecuting, that in 1995 he "couldn't have been happier; she was fine and we were thrilled, we had three children and one was as beautiful as the other. Jackie was a mother who was second-to-none. They were really good kids, she'd do anything for them."
However, he said, Ms Costello's character "changed totally".
"She began drinking very heavily, she wasn't listening to me and she became abusive," he said. She moved out of the family home into the rented house in Mullinavat in September 2000. "She was changing, I could see in her eyes she wasn't well, she wasn't taking care of herself."
On the last morning that he saw Robert, he recalled how "thrilled" his son seemed to see him. "A smile came on his face, his eyes lit up, like 'Daddy's here, it's going to be all right'. He was thrilled.
"I never saw Robert after that again," he said. "Jacqueline Costello wasn't there, it wasn't her."
The trial continues today before Mr Justice Butler and a jury.