A woman who was murdered at her home, allegedly in a contract killing organised by her Dundalk husband, had suffered 37 stab wounds, Belfast Crown Court heard yesterday. Details of the troubled marriage of the victim, Mrs Rose Moran (32), and her husband Mr Joe Moran, were given by her mother, Mrs Sadie McKeown, at the trial of Mr Philip Andrew Quigley (24).
The court was told that in a confession to Garda detectives, Mr Quigley, from St Nicholas Avenue, Dundalk, claimed Mr Moran offered him and a another Dundalk man £5,000 each to kill his wife in August 1991.
Mr Quigley denies murdering the mother of one child in her isolated Border home at Fairyhill Road, Clontigora, near Newry.
Mrs McKeown said her daughter's 14-year marriage with Mr Moran "wasn't working out" and that at one stage the couple had split up for 4 1/2 years. She added that although they had got back together again the Christmas before her stabbing, her son-in-law was often missing and "the marriage wasn't good". Earlier, she told of speaking to her daughter for the last time on the phone.
The North's deputy State Pathologist, Dr Derek Carson, detailed the stab wounds inflicted on the victim. He said she had been stabbed five times in the face, mostly on the left side of the cheek and chin, although there was one wound on the right side.
In her neck were 11 wounds, again mostly on the left. One of these had severed the main artery which would have bled profusely. There were two other wounds on the right side of the neck.
Dr Carson said he also found five wounds on the right side of her upper chest, with two more lower down, and a further two stabbings on the left just below her breast.
She'd also been stabbed three times on the right side of her back, and four times on the left. On her left arm, Dr Carson found three other stab wounds, one of which had passed right through. There were also other marks, or grazing on her right breast, upper back and across her stomach, which Dr Carson said may have been caused by a blunted knife. Her left lung, liver and spleen had all been punctured. Earlier, Mrs Moran's nephew, Mr Tony McKeown, told of finding her blood-soaked body after a neighbour phoned to say the door of her isolated bungalow was lying open. The trial continues today.