An 18-year-old Cork man was yesterday jailed for life for the murder of beautician Ms Rachel Kiely (22). He was also convicted of raping Ms Kiely and will be sentenced later on this charge.
Ian Horgan, who at the age of 16 accosted Ms Kiely as she was walking her dogs in a park in Ballincollig, Co Cork, had denied the crimes.
After a 26-day trial over seven weeks in the Central Criminal Court, a jury of five women and seven men took four hours and 40 minutes to find Horgan, of Inishmore Square, Ballincollig, guilty of the rape and murder of Ms Kiely at the Regional Park, Ballincollig, on October 26th, 2000.
The jury reached a majority verdict of 10 to 2 on both charges about half an hour after the trial judge, Mr Justice Paul Butler, directed them that a majority verdict was now open to them.
Mr Justice Butler sentenced Horgan to the mandatory term of life imprisonment for the murder and put back sentencing on the rape charge to later this year. Leave to appeal was refused. The judge expressed his sympathy to the family of the deceased.
Afterwards, Mrs Rose Kiely, Rachel Kiely's mother, said that the family were "relieved" at the outcome and could now try to get on with their lives. "We have obtained a measure of justice for our daughter, Rachel," she said.
The case against Horgan hinged on DNA and fibre evidence.
In the year of the murder, Horgan, the eldest of a family of four, was working as a crate assembler at a local packaging company. He told his trial that at the age of 14 he had been "dismissed" from school for bad behaviour.
His father, Mr Daniel Horgan, disputed this in his evidence, saying that the school merely advised the family that they would be "better off if they took him out of it".
Ian Horgan told the court that he knew Rachel Kiely "just to salute her" and had gone to school with her brother. There was no evidence of anything beyond a nodding acquaintance between the two neighbours.
Horgan was in a two-year relationship with a local teenage girl at the time and, after raping and murdering Rachel Kiely, he had later collected his girlfriend from her workplace.
The State Pathologis, Dr John Harbison, found that Rachel Kiely was manually strangled after she was raped. A post-mortem showed "more than one compression of the neck" and "ample evidence" of violence to it, indicating an intention to kill, the pathologist said.
Dr Harbison believed that Rachel Kiely tried to escape her attacker by running behind the ruins of an old house in the park. Her body was found about 25 metres from the ruin, partially concealed with ferns and briars.
Strong DNA and fibre evidence assembled by State forensic scientists Dr Maureen Smyth and Dr Helen Ramsbottom directly linked Horgan to the crime.
Analysis of fibres showed that green, blue and brown acrylic fibres found on the grey fleece jacket Rachel Kiely was wearing at the time of her death matched fibres from Horgan's jumper. Four red acrylic fibres on her fleece also matched a red Arsenal hat Ian Horgan left close to his motorbike in the park.
The DNA in semen recovered from Rachel Kiely's person matched DNA in saliva samples taken from Horgan.
Defence lawyers, led by Mr Blaise O'Carroll SC, attempted to challenge the DNA analysis, claiming that the prosecution was "blinded by science" and testing the scientific evidence through four days of cross-examination of Dr Smyth and the calling of two expert witnesses.
The second DNA expert for the defence, Dr Denise Syndercombe Court, had examined all the case material received in the Forensic Science Laboratory. She found that test tubes in which crucial sample swabs were collected were not resealed. This raised the "theoretical" possibility of contamination or tampering, but Dr Syndercombe Court agreed that this was "unlikely" and would have to have been deliberately done. The prosecution, led by Mr P.J. McCarthy SC, argued that the issue of contamination was a red herring "thrown in" to throw the jury off course.
Throughout his detention and trial, Ian Horgan denied having any contact with Rachel Kiely, claiming that the last time he saw her was at the local "Debs" the previous September.