A contested statement made to gardai by Mrs Anna Maria Sacco said she tried to get two different men to kill her husband before a teenage girl described as her best friend did it for her.
Her defence counsel has said she only made the statement to get out of Garda custody. Garda witnesses denied they verbally and physically assaulted her while she was in custody.
The contested statement was heard in a late sitting of the Central Criminal Court yesterday evening, following a period of legal argument heard in the absence of the jury.
Mrs Anna Maria Sacco (21) has pleaded not guilty to the murder of her husband, Franco (29), at their home at Coolamber Park, Templeogue, Dublin, on March 20th, 1997.
Det Sgt Jim Costello, now attached to Tallaght Garda station but at the time of the investigation attached to Rathfarnham, said that at 1:19 p.m. on Monday, March 24th, 1997, he interviewed Mrs Sacco in the presence of another garda. Her mother had earlier paid her a short visit "for a couple of minutes" and "basically told her to tell the truth".
Her mother left, and Mrs Sacco indicated she wanted to make a statement, and he wrote it down as she dictated it. The statement was interrupted twice by visits from her solicitor.
In her statement, which she signed on its completion, Mrs Sacco reminded Sgt Costello that he knew her husband had been beating her for years because she had told him in Tallaght. She then told the garda: "Twice I tried to get someone to kill him."
She gave one man, a brother of a friend, £1,000 to kill Franco. He kept the money but did nothing. She had been having an affair with Mr Peter Clifford, a previous witness in the trial, and asked him to kill her husband. He said he would, but he, too, did nothing. She also asked the teenage girl who eventually pulled the trigger.
Later she clarified: "I did want Franco killed, and asked three separate people on several occasions to kill him".
On the Wednesday night before his death, she was in the chip shop they ran in Rathfarnham with the teenager, Mr Clifford, her sister Caitriona and her sister's girlfriend. There they joked about killing her husband. "I said we will stick him in the bath and cut him up. The girl was going to shoot him with Franco's own gun. She was going to kill him because we were best friends."
When she went home later with her sister and the teenager, Franco was watching the video Heat in the sitting room. She joined the teenager in the kitchen and asked her "was she going to do it".
The girl said "yes" and they returned to the sitting-room where they watched a man on the video load blue cartridges into a gun. They were like cartridges her husband used but she said his could not kill because "your ones are for hunting". Franco replied in Italian "f...ing sure you could".
Her sister had left by the time Franco went to bed and she and the teenager sat watching television because when the girl said she was going to do it, Mrs Sacco said: "Don't, he is still awake".
Later the girl took the shotgun out and put it under her bed. Mrs Sacco went upstairs and had sex with her husband and then slept.
The statement continued that the next morning she woke the girl up and said to her: "Are you going to do it?"
"I meant, are you going to kill Franco."
The girl said "Yeah" so Mrs Sacco went downstairs and put on her shoes. "I was on my way back up the stairs when I heard bang."
She froze, and then the girl came down the stairs saying: "I'm after killing him, I'm after killing him." Mrs Sacco said she panicked and ran out of the house, and the girl joined her in the car.
The prosecution case will end today as the trial continues before Mr Justice O'Higgins and a jury.