BACKGROUND:Some of victim's family believed killer was actually motivated by a form of 'evil', writes GERRY MORIARTY
WHAT POSSESSED Karen Walsh to batter her kind, frail elderly neighbour to death on Christmas morning three years ago?
Why would she, as was alleged during the 10-day trial that ended with her conviction yesterday evening, attack the elderly lady with a crucifix leaving the imprint of the crown of thorns from the crucifix on her bruised face?
What could have possessed her, as the prosecution also alleged, to strip off Maire Rankin’s clothes and sexually assault her with the crucifix so as to convey the false impression that an unknown male intruder and sexual predator was really the guilty party?
Evidence was given that Walsh, owner of a pharmacy on George’s Street in Dublin and married to a senior accountant in Dublin, consumed all but 5mm of a litre bottle of vodka that night. So drink may have been a significant factor in her attack on 81-year-old Mrs Rankin.
But such was the terrible and “bizarre” nature of that late Christmas Eve and Christmas morning at Mrs Rankin’s home on the Dublin Road in Newry that one might reasonably imagine that Walsh (45) might have opted for a plea of manslaughter and made a case of diminished responsibility – even though drunkenness does not constitute a defence for murder.
We may never know what possessed her because she pleaded her innocence in court and therefore offered no excuses or mitigating factors.
PSNI Chief Inspector John Caldwell said Walsh had acted in a “drunken and depraved” manner while members of the victim’s family said she acted in a “drunken rage”. Others of Ms Rankin’s eight children and extended family believed Walsh actually was possessed and that what motivated her was a form of “evil”.
The jury heard she and Mrs Rankin had been good neighbours. Walsh, a native of Galway, and her husband Richard Durkin had bought the well-appointed house beside Mrs Rankin 14 months earlier “just to get away from Dublin”.
During the working week they lived in a suite in the the 4-star Berkeley Court Hotel in Dublin.
On one occasion several months earlier Walsh noticed that Mrs Rankin’s front door had been left open, and she alerted a neighbour to ensure she was safe. Her husband even gave Mrs Rankin telephone numbers so that she could contact him, if she were ever in difficulty. Mrs Rankin was so grateful that she wrote a letter of thanks to the couple.
The court heard how Mrs Rankin was a religious woman with a good sense of humour, how she loved books, how she liked an occasional glass of wine with her dinner, drank a glass of sherry with her house cleaner once a week but would be appalled if she saw any of her children drunk.
At Christmas 2008 she was recovering from a chest infection but was preparing to travel to the home of one of her daughters, Brenda, in nearby Loughbrickland for part of the holiday. Initially the plan was she would travel on Christmas Eve but Mrs Rankin wanted an extra day to recover. And she was all set: the presents for her children and grandchildren were wrapped and put aside; there were mince pies for any visiting neighbours; she would be ready to move when Brenda came to collect her on Christmas morning.
But sometime after 11.30 pm on Christmas Eve Walsh decided to bring a litre bottle of vodka to another neighbour. When that neighbour was not in she instead decided to visit Mrs Rankin, who was in bed but “buzzed” her into the house.
During the trial we got a picture of Walsh entering the bedroom, sprawling herself on the bottom of the bed, and drinking the vodka neat from the bottle. Mrs Rankin, according to Walsh, did not object because after all it was Christmas.
The defence case was that she was in the house for some 2½ hours and that she left for home at about 2am, and did not get up until around 11am the following morning, and that when she left Mrs Rankin was “fine”.
There was an argument from defence lawyer Peter Irvine that an unknown intruder may have entered the home after Walsh left and assaulted Mrs Rankin.
The jury of seven women and five men however believed the horrendous picture as presented by Liam McCollum QC of Walsh engaging in a brutal beating of Mrs Rankin.
The jury heard one proposition that Walsh effectively went berserk after Mrs Rankin criticised her for drinking and not being back at home with her then 2½-year-old old son and husband.
In the assault Mrs Rankin suffered bruising to her head, face and right arm, she sustained 16 fractures to her ribs. And there was all that evidence there that she was in fact assaulted with the crucifix taken down from her bedroom wall and that she was possibly also sexually assaulted with the cross.
It did not take the jury long to make up their minds. Only 1 hour and 52 minutes later they were back with their guilty verdict.