A 23-YEAR-OLD Kilkenny man has been sentenced to life in prison by the Central Criminal Court for the murders of a young mother and her two daughters last Christmas morning.
Brian Hennessy of Windgap, Co Kilkenny, pleaded guilty yesterday to all three murders.
The postal worker had strangled Sharon Whelan (30) before setting fire to her home at Roscon, near Windgap. Seven-year-old Zara and two-year-old Nadia died in the fire. DNA evidence linked Hennessy to the family home.
Mr Justice Barry White imposed two consecutive and one concurrent life sentence for the murders. The State did not then proceed with three other charges on the indictment, including a charge of raping Ms Whelan. Hennessy yesterday pleaded not guilty to the rape, and a jury of one woman and 11 men were sworn in.
Det Sgt Jim Lyng told Tom O'Connell, prosecuting, that Sharon Whelan was last seen alive about 11pm on Christmas Eve, when the foster father who raised her dropped off gifts for the children. Christy Whelan parked away from the two-storey, dilapidated farmhouse which the single mother rented, and went only to the door so the children would not hear him. All three generations were to spend Christmas Day at Christy and Nancy Whelan's house.
Instead, neighbours found the farmhouse engulfed in flames the following morning, and the three bodies were recovered from the downstairs bedroom at the back of the house. Rigor mortis had set in in the case of Ms Whelan, whose remains were found naked from the waist down.
Postmortems showed both girls died from carbon monoxide poisoning due to smoke inhalation, but Ms Whelan had no soot in her lungs. She had a mark around her neck, her thyroid cartilage and hyoid bone were fractured, and the cause of death was strangulation.
State pathologist Dr Marie Cassidy found other injuries to Ms Whelan's body, including bruising to her cheek bone, abrasions on her knee, and bruising to her thigh.
Ms Whelan's family sobbed as details of sexual injuries were read out. Dr Cassidy stated that these injuries would be found in cases where sex was not consensual, but did not necessarily mean this was the case in this instance. However, they would have been painful.
"She may have been strangled during a sexual act," she wrote, adding that it could not be excluded that sex was attempted after Ms Whelan became unconscious or around the time of death.
"There was no evidence of a long struggle," she wrote. "There were no defensive-type injuries." She pointed out that pressure to the neck can result in rapid unconsciousness.
After the examinations, gardaí asked local men to give saliva samples. The DNA profile found on Ms Whelan's body matched Hennessy's. Det Sgt Lyng arrested Hennessy on January 15th at his home, and he denied involvement.
He had previously said the closest he had been to the house was the letterbox at the gate.
Hennessy later admitted going to the house to have sex with the woman, whom he barely knew. He said she was a little surprised to see him, but he claimed she brought him to the bedroom where her two daughters were sleeping, turned on the light and had sex with him.
Hennessy continued to lie in Garda interviews, but his story about his whereabouts contradicted his mother's, who said she let him in the front door about 7am on Christmas morning.
In the fifth interview he admitted killing Ms Whelan, accepted she was dead an hour and a half before he left the house, and agreed with gardaí that he "used her for his gratification whether she wanted it or not".