A man (26) has been jailed for life after a jury found him guilty of the murder of a 65-year-old grandmother who was shot dead in her bed in Tallaght, Dublin, last year.
Conor Grogan (26), Avonbeg Park, Tallaght, Dublin, and Timothy Rattigan (26), of St Dominick’s Terrace, Tallaght, had pleaded not guilty to the murder of Joan Casey at Avonbeg Park on April 3rd, 2004.
But he jury of six men and six women at the Central Criminal Court in Dublin found Rattigan guilty of murder on a majority verdict of 10 to two after deliberating for a almost five-and-a-half hours.
"I sentence the accused to prison for life," Mr Justice Paul Carney said. The mandatory life sentence is effective immediately.
Mr Justice Carney had directed the jury earlier this week to find Rattigan’s co-accused, Grogan, not guilty due to insufficient evidence against him.
Mrs Casey’s family members broke down crying as the guilty verdict was delivered.
Joan Casey was shot dead through her bedroom door at 6am after two men with a shotgun smashed in through the front door.
During the 12-day trial, the court heard how she had moved to sleep in that room "because she thought she would be safer" there after a window was smashed in her front bedroom in November 2003.
The court heard how Mrs Casey’s neighbour had woken up around 6am to shouting, smashing noises and two loud bangs on the morning she was murdered.
He saw two men, one of whom had a shotgun, at the dead woman’s gate, walking away slowly. The shotgun was found disassembled in three pieces in a blue bag in the bushes close to Rattigan’s sister’s flat.
The bag also contained live and spent cartridges and a blank firing pistol.