Murder accused told fellow church member he pushed woman

A murder accused told a fellow member of his church that he had killed a widowed pensioner and set fire to her house, his trial has been told.

Jude Curran was giving evidence to the Central Criminal Court on Tuesday in the trial of a 53-year-old man accused of murdering a woman in Kilkenny 30 years ago.

John Joseph Malone is charged with murdering 69-year-old Ann 'Nancy' Smyth on September 11th, 1987 at her home on Wolfe Tone Street in the city. She was strangled before fire was set to her house.

Mr Malone of Newpark in Kilkenny City has pleaded not guilty.

Mr Curran testified he had known the accused since Mr Malone was a teenager and that they were ‘very good friends’ by the time of Mrs Smyth’s death. He said they had attended the same church and bible study group.

He said Mr Malone came to his house in Newpark Close about two months later.

“I was reading the bible and John Joe came in and just said to me: ‘Jude, if somebody murdered someone, would God forgive them?’” said Mr Curran.

King David and Moses

He said he told him that King David and Moses had murdered people and were in Heaven, but that they had been sorry.

“He said: ‘Well what if this person isn’t sorry for what they’ve done?’” said Mr Curran. “Then I just said they’d be wasting their time.”

He said that the accused came to see him again a few months later.

“He just said to me that he couldn’t make out how forensics says that Mrs Smyth was strangled,” he said. “He had told me that he had argued with her and that he pushed her and she fell,” he continued, adding that Mr Malone had told him she had banged her head off a stone.

“That he brought her in, sat her down and she died, and that he set fire to the house,” he said. “He had told me that Mrs Smyth had accused his brother of taking her purse and he had gone to confront her about that.”

Mr Curran said Mr Malone told him another time it was bothering him and that he could not sleep.

“I said, if you like I can go to the guards’ barracks with you and bring a solicitor and, because you’re confessing and they’ve nothing else on you, you’d get a light sentence,” said Mr Curran. “He said he would, only for his mother; he wouldn’t like to put that on his mother. I said: ‘That’s only an excuse, John Joe. If your mother was dead in the morning you’d have another excuse’.”

Carving knife

He said Mr Malone had called to his house again years later. He said they were sitting in the kitchen when Mr Malone picked a carving knife out of a block and began sticking it into a work top.

“He said to me: ‘You know you could have me arrested and given jail for what I done to Nancy Smyth’,” testified Mr Curran. “I said: ‘That’s ridiculous. It would be your word against mine so it wouldn’t make any difference’.”

Under cross-examination by Colman Cody SC, defending, he said he and other members of his church would pray for the family of the deceased at their bible meetings.

“You would pray, without doubt, that justice would be sought and done,” he added. “We would specifically pray for the police that they would find enough evidence.”

He was aware Mr Malone had been arrested and detained as part of the initial investigation. He said he received a phone call following his release.

“Someone rang me, said they were from Kilkenny Garda station and that they’d had John Joe in for questioning,” he said.

Confess

He explained that this person said the gardaí believed Mr Malone would confess to somebody because a person can’t murder somebody and not confess, and we believe he’ll probably confess to you’.

“I said even if John Joe confessed to me, it would be my word against his,” he said.

He said he also told this caller not enough effort was being put into getting evidence because Mrs Smyth was ‘an old age pensioner’ and not a member of a more prominent Kilkenny family.

He was asked what he had made of the question about murder and Heaven.

“In my mind I was praying. I said: ‘Dear Lord, don’t have him confess to me’. I didn’t want John Joe confessing to me at all,” he replied.

He was asked why.

“Because I didn’t want to know if he had murdered that woman, so I didn’t want him confessing to me,” he said.

Mr Curran agreed that he did not make any statement until 2012.

Strangled

Mr Cody read from that statement: “He said to me that he had killed Nancy Smyth, but what was bothering him was that forensics said she was strangled.”

Mr Cody suggested that his client had never uttered such words.

The barrister asked, if Mr Malone had told a number of people in his church that he killed Nancy Smyth, should they not go to the authorities ‘as civic minded, God fearing people, as responsible citizens’.

“I don’t mean that they should go to the authorities, but if they’re asked,” he replied.

“I probably have prayed that John Joe would repent of that, that God would put it on his heart to come forward,” he said later. “But that would be it. I don’t have to approach John Joe myself to do that.”

Mr Cody suggested that, in light of his whole background and beliefs, his reason for not coming forward earlier did not stand up.

“If I was the only one here, I’d be wasting my time,” replied the witness.

The trial continues.