A 25 year-old Welsh woman who stabbed a Leitrim man 13 times with three knives and then poured boiling water over him has pleaded not guilty to his murder at the Central Criminal Court yesterday.
"I just went too far, things can go too far. I just stabbed him four or five times, once in the eye," Ms Christina Williams allegedly told gardaí in a statement last year.
Ms Williams denies murdering Mr Andrew Foley (54) at his basement flat on Nelson St, Dublin 7, on May 7th, 2002.
Opening the case for the State, Mr Alex Owens, SC, described how Mr Foley had only met Ms Williams in a pub on Dorset St, Dublin, on the day of his death. Originally from Leitrim, Mr Foley had been living and working as a carpenter in Dublin for several years.
"Christina Williams had only arrived in Ireland from north Wales a few weeks before and had been in The Meeting Pint pub since 11 a.m.
She was friendly and appeared to be intimate with Mr Foley - that is to say, they were kissing and fondling. They had consumed a lot of drink," Mr Owens told the court.
Mr Nicholas Maher, the then joint-owner of The Meeting Pint, told the court he had noticed Ms Williams in his bar with Mr Foley that day and said she was getting money off customers to play the jukebox.
"Mr Foley bought her a drink and she said she'd bring him outside the back for a f*** for buying her that and she touched him on the leg," he said.
It is alleged that Mr Foley and Ms Williams left the pub together later that afternoon and went back to his flat. "She went to sleep for an hour.
Mr Foley went out to another pub and then returned to the flat. When he returned to the flat there was a row. During the course of the row, the accused inflicted 13 stab wounds to Mr Foley," said Mr Owens.
Garda Louise Clinton told the court that Ms Williams told her she was asleep when Mr Foley returned. "He asked me for sex, I said no and he said you can just f*** out of here," Ms Williams said in a statement to Garda Clinton last year.
"He grabbed me by the neck and I had my back to the worktop. I stabbed him in the eye first, he let me go then I stabbed him again," she told gardaí.
When asked why she poured boiling water over Mr Foley, Ms Williams told gardaí: "The kettle was on the worktop. I boiled it - I filled it and waited - and I chucked it over him when he was in the chair. I just got carried away."
Garda Clinton identified three kitchen knives found at the scene, the largest of which had its blade broken off. "I think the blade broke when I was stabbing Andrew Foley," Ms Williams told her at Mountjoy Garda station.
The court heard evidence from several of Mr Foley's neighbours, who alerted the emergency services after they found him slumped in his armchair bleeding profusely.
Mr Liam Crampsey told the court that he came down and found Mr Thomas Hanley bending over Mr Foley with Ms Williams screaming in the flat.
Ms Williams was remanded in custody. The trial continues today before Mr Justice Kevin O'Higgins at the Central Criminal Court.