THE TRIAL of a pharmacist from Dublin accused of murdering her next-door neighbour in Newry, Co Down, heard yesterday that the accused woman and her husband had helped the victim on a number of occasions.
Karen Walsh (45), denies the murder of Maire Rankin (81), who was found dead at her home on Dublin Road, Newry, on Christmas Day in 2008. It is alleged she had been beaten with a crucifix and that she was sexually assaulted after her death.
Yesterday at Belfast Crown Court, her daughter Brenda Rankin said she was not aware that her mother was worried about burglaries and other incidents in the area shortly before she was killed.
She was answering questions from defence lawyer Peter Irvine.
She said she was not aware that her mother had expressed concerns about “a number of matters involving people from eastern Europe” or that she had been worried about someone calling at her home purporting to be a window-cleaner. Ms Rankin said she did not remember her mother saying that she thought the caller was observing her in her home.
However, she said she did recall Ms Walsh and her husband Peter Durkin helping her mother on a number of occasions. She said Mr Durkin had provided her with an electric heater after her boiler stopped working.
She said Ms Walsh and her husband had alerted other neighbours after Ms Rankin left her front door open one night.
The murder victim’s daughter also told the court she was not aware her mother had written to Ms Walsh thanking her and her husband for their vigilance.
Ms Rankin said Ms Walsh and her husband had bought the house next door to her mother 18 months before the murder. She said they lived and worked in Dublin and only spent a few weekends in Newry. She said she had never met Ms Walsh.
Ms Rankin told the jury of seven women and five men how she broke the news of her mother’s death to her brother Diarmuid after he arrived at the family home on Christmas morning from Omeath in Co Louth where he lived. “I said I think somebody has killed Mummy,” she told him.
Ms Walsh told police that she had gone into Ms Rankin’s home on Christmas Eve for a festive drink, bringing a bottle of vodka with her, the court has been told.
However, another of Ms Rankin’s daughters, Mairéad McIlkerney, said her mother never drank spirits and only enjoyed a glass of wine with a meal or the occasional sherry. “She would have been horrified if we got drunk in the house. That was a taboo,” she added.
Diarmuid Rankin said he had tried to persuade his mother not to spend Christmas Eve alone in her home, but rather to go to his sister’s home. She had recovered well from a bout of the flu. “Her humour and her spirits were excellent. She said she couldn’t wait for Christmas Day.”
A brother-in-law found her naked body on the floor of her bedroom on Christmas morning.
A neighbour of Ms Rankin accepted in court that a description he gave to police of a woman sitting near the house on the morning of the killing did not tally with a photograph police took of Ms Walsh two days later.
Paul Rafferty said the woman he saw smoking a cigarette while sitting on a wall of a house on the Dublin Road just after 7.20 on Christmas morning had untidy dirty blonde hair which was fuzzy and bushy. He also said it was shoulder length or shorter.
However, when Mr Irvine showed Mr Rafferty a picture of Ms Walsh in police custody two days after the murder, Mr Rafferty accepted her hair was longer than shoulder length and was not bushy, fuzzy or untidy.
Mr Rafferty said he never saw the face of the woman who was having the cigarette between Ms Rankin’s house and the home of Ms Walsh next door.
The trial continues.