A galway woman who admits killing her sister's husband pleaded not guilty to his murder as her trial began yesterday at the Central Criminal Court in Dublin.
She was living with the man and admits stabbing him six times with a kitchen knife, days after she learnt her sister had committed suicide by a drug overdose.
The jury heard that both the woman and her sister were beaten and abused by the man and on the night of the killing she blamed him for her sister's death.
When she was arraigned, Ms Kathleen Bell (36), of Camilaun Park, Newcastle, Co Galway, pleaded not guilty to the murder but guilty of the manslaughter of Mr Patrick Sammon (42) at her home on June 20th, 1997.
Mr Marcus Daly SC, prosecuting, told the jury the facts "might seem stranger than fiction in many ways".
Ms Bell, her sister and two brothers were deserted as children and the three youngest were brought up in orphanages. As a teenager Kathleen Bell had a baby that was taken from her and put up for adoption.
In 1980, when she was 18, she again became pregnant. In September 1981 she married the father, Mr Philip Bell, a native of Derry, with whom she had six children. One of her children died in infancy. She had a nervous breakdown in 1985. She began abusing drink, could not cope with the care of her children and was "having difficulties" with her husband.
She left her husband for a short time in 1986 and her children were later taken into care. On another occasion, she attempted suicide and Mr Bell, who had been working in England, came home and got custody of the children. Their marriage was later annulled by the Catholic Church and Mr Bell obtained a divorce before remarrying in 1997.
Mr Sammon was married to Kathleen's sister Mary, with whom he had three children. Before 1988 that marriage broke up and Mary moved to England with her children. Some time later, Kathleen began a relationship with Mr Sammon.
Three years before his killing, they began living together at the house in Camilaun Park. There would be evidence their relationship was "very stormy" with "drink on both sides".
Mr Sammon abused Ms Bell. She sometimes put him out and he stayed at a hostel, where he was living at the time of his death. Two days before she learned that Mary had died of an overdose in London two months earlier.
Kathleen later told gardai that as they argued on the night she killed him, Mr Sammon said he didn't give a hoot about Mary and wanted to marry her. "I said she is dead because of you," her statement said.
She said that as the argument continued she asked Mr Sammon to leave but he wouldn't go. She went to the kitchen and hid a kitchen knife under her jumper, later stabbing him six times in the chest and shoulder. He died of internal bleeding from stab wounds to the lung and pulmonary artery.
She didn't mean to kill him, Ms Bell told gardai, she just "lost the head" and "freaked out".
They often rowed, she said, and the police had come a number of times. Once he was jailed for six months for assault. He beat her when she was pregnant in a house in Rahoon Road. She "lost the child three days later".
She also told gardai that marks on her arm came from where Mr Sammon had cut her six years previously. He had also hit her on the head with a kettle, she said. "He also used to beat my sister Mary," she told gardai. "He used to gamble. He left them without money."
Mr Daly said gardai would say she was "very composed" when police first arrived at her house. Despite the "appalling" circumstances of her life and the "unfortunate things" that had happened to her, "the law is there and has to be observed by everyone", he told the jury.
"The ante was upped" when she went to the kitchen and "armed herself with a knife", he said. She threatened Mr Sammon with the knife first, and "when he didn't believe her, she stabbed him a total of six times".
Mr Daly said the jury must decide whether Ms Bell intended to murder Mr Sammon. "We say that at all times she knew what she was doing," he said.
Ms Justice Catherine McGuinness later said Mr Patrick MacEntee SC, defending, had indicated that Ms Bell's defence would be provocation. Her lawyers would submit she was sufficiently provoked as to cause her to lose control, a defence which would mean she was guilty of manslaughter.
In evidence, Mr Bernie Ward of Coogan Park, Newcastle said he and his wife received a phone call from Ms Bell at 1.30 a.m. on June 20th. She asked him to call over as she and Patrick had fought. Patrick was in the bedroom, sitting against the bed. He saw no blood and when he pulled up his jumper, he could "barely see" the marks, which were "tiny". Kathleen Bell was "very distressed" and "I don't think she realised how hurt he was," Mr Ward said. She told him she had phoned for an ambulance.
She said they were arguing about her sister - she wanted him to go and he wouldn't go. Ms Bell asked him to tell gardai he was passing by and heard her shouts and to say Patrick had arrived already wounded, he said.
He said he did this because he didn't want to get her into trouble. At the time he thought "if Patrick had pulled through his injuries they would have made it up".
Ms Bell's brother, Mr Francis Boylan, said he did not know he had family until he asked the reverend mother at St Joseph's orphanage in Clifden, and she put him in contact with his two sisters at the Mercy Convent in Moate, Co Westmeath.
The dead man was "the most kind man you could meet" when not drinking, Mr Boylan said, but with it he became another person and was "very possessive".
Mr Boylan told Mr MacEntee Kathleen never wanted to go to hospital when she was beaten, because she feared she would end up losing her right to see her children, who were living with her ex-husband in the North.
But he believed most of her "very bad scars" were "self-inflicted through the depression she had suffered at the hands of Pat". Two nights before the killing, Kathleen came to his house to tell him Mary was dead, he said. Mr Sammon had "treated her bad as well" when they were married, "all through drink".
He remembered Mr Sammon and Ms Bell arguing that night. Mr Sammon said: "Now that the bitch is dead, I can bring the children back." He believed Mr Sammon only wanted his youngest daughter back, and was arguing because Kathleen wanted them to rear Mary's three children together and not break them up.