A Wicklow publican, Mrs Catherine Nevin, contracted out the murder of her husband because she bore him ill-will and wanted to get full control of their business, a jury was told yesterday.
The State's case against Mrs Nevin was laid out by Mr Peter Charleton SC.
He invited the jurors to conclude that circumstantial evidence which would be put before them jelled with the prosecution theory that murder took place through a contract killing made to look like a botched robbery.
As her trial opened before the jury after two days of legal argument, Mrs Nevin was rearraigned and now faces all four counts originally laid against her including, in addition to murder, three counts of soliciting named men to kill her husband.
Mrs Nevin (48) has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Thomas (Tom) Nevin (54), on March 19th, 1996, in their home at Jack White's Inn, Ballinapark, near Brittas Bay in Co Wicklow.
She also denies charges of soliciting three people to carry out the murder. She pleads not guilty to a charge that on diverse dates in or about 1989 she solicited Mr John Jones, that on various dates in or about 1990 she solicited Mr Gerry Heapes, and that on a date unknown in 1990 at St Vincent's Hospital, Dublin, she solicited Mr Thomas McClean to murder her husband.
The couple were married for 20 years when the killing took place. The jurors were told their marriage had effectively ended and was seen as "a business relationship".
Mr Charleton said: "Catherine Nevin decided to dispose of her husband by having him murdered by some other hand. The prosecution do not have that other hand," or that person would also be facing a murder charge.
Mr Nevin died from an injury to his heart caused by a single shotgun blast fired at very close range. Nine of the shot pellets "discharged directly into his heart, severing the great vessels, causing him to lose consciousness in 30 seconds and to die within four minutes," counsel said.
His glasses were still in place on his nose, "his pen was still in the hand of his remains" when gardai found him lying on his back on the floor of the kitchen, the top of a broken stool to one side of the body. He had been "totting up his takings" from the St Patrick's weekend pub tills.
On the kitchen worktop were a cash book, coin cartridges and a number of cheques, alongside a pint glass of stout three-quarters empty.
The scene indicated "a sudden and overwhelming use of force to which he had no time to respond," Mr Charleton said.
Earlier Mr Nevin had dropped two customers home and when he returned he entered a "Z1" total on his cash tills, the till record indicating a time of 12:56 a.m. He then went to the kitchen to do his accounts, and it was there some time later that he was "dispatched into the next world".
Mr Charleton said the jury would hear evidence that Mrs Nevin claimed she was bound by her hands and ankles by robbers before making her way to a stationary panic button sited just inside the front door. "Surprisingly", she had not used a mobile panic button in her bedroom, he said. The alarm on the premises was not switched on.
There would be evidence that Mrs Nevin bore ill-will towards her husband; that some six years prior to this she had solicited three people to kill him; and that she committed the murder through the hand of another.
He claimed the murder was in accordance with a plan outlined to three men some six years previously by Mrs Nevin. The prosecution would say there were three serious attempts by Mrs Nevin, because "she wanted control of the business".
The murder was to take place on a bank holiday weekend when the pub takings would be substantial. The deceased was to be shot in what would appear to be a botched robbery.
He said the jury was also entitled to look at evidence that the animosity and ill-will Mrs Nevin bore towards her husband continued after the period when the alleged soliciting took place in 1989 and 1990.
He said it was not for the jury to raise any inference from the fact that at the time of the killing the Nevins' marriage was effectively at an end and "they were no longer sleeping together or having a conjugal relationship".
The evidence would show that, with the knowledge of her husband, Mrs Nevin was "sharing her affections" with other people and the marriage was described in the book of evidence as "a business relationship".
Mr Charleton said three members of staff were paid by cheque by Mrs Nevin on the weekend of the killing, and she had also given instructions that the inn would take no B&B bookings that weekend.
He said the prosecution would prove that "Tom Nevin died at the hands of another, but died in essence at the hand of his wife, who had previously contracted for that to be done".
In evidence Mr James Curry, a controller-operator with Bell Communications, said he was monitoring alarm signals on the morning of March 19th. At 4:31.am. a panic alarm activation from Jack White's Inn flashed up on the screen. He immediately phoned Wexford Garda station.
Garda Sean Whelan, on duty as a telephone operator in Wexford, said he put out an alert on Mr Nevin's missing black Opel Omega by fax to all divisional stations.
In direct evidence before the jury and Ms Justice Carroll, Garda witnesses agreed with Mr Patrick MacEntee SC, defending, that there were eight separate entrance doors to the premises downstairs, and one by way of a fire escape upstairs.
The jury also heard that the last person to leave the lounge portion of the premises on the night of the murder was a garda.
Sgt Richard McElligott, who is stationed in Avoca, said he knew both Catherine and Tom Nevin and drank at the pub on average about once a month. On March 18th, 1996, he arrived at the pub at around 10.45 p.m.
He had 2 1/2 pints of Guinness before being let out the front door by Mrs Nevin, her husband having left to drop two customers home. Earlier he had overheard Mrs Nevin say to Tom: "I will do the driving if you wish."
Sgt McElligott told Mr Charleton that he saw nothing suspicious while he was at the pub. He said it was not the case that when Tom Nevin came back they met in the car-park outside and went into the lounge for another drink.
The witness agreed with counsel that after the coffin was put in the hearse at Tom Nevin's funeral the accused told him Tom had meant to talk to him about "being followed by a strange car" when he was returning on Mondays from Dublin. Tom never discussed any such fear with him, said Sgt McElligott.
The trial continues before Ms Justice Carroll on Monday.