A Dundalk man stabbed his wife to death with a bread-knife, a jury heard yesterday.
Mr James McDonagh (28), with an address at Slieve Foy Park, Dundalk, Co Louth, pleaded not guilty to murdering his wife, Sheila McDonagh (26), outside their home on September 12th, 1997.
Opening the prosecution case at the Central Criminal Court Mr Ralph Sutton SC told the jury the case was "not one in which [they] had to decide who caused the murder because we have witnesses".
Mr Paul Foley, who operates a mobile shop, told the court that he witnessed a "commotion" between the deceased and another woman. "They were pulling each other's hair and fighting and thumping each other," he said.
Mr Foley told the court how he then saw Mr James McDonagh come around the corner and enter the garden where the two women had now stopped physically fighting.
Mr Foley said Mr McDonagh then grabbed his wife "by the hair of the head and had her in a headlock.
Mr Foley said he saw the accused reach into his back pocket for a large knife, with which he stabbed the deceased in the back, in a downwards movement.
The court heard that Mrs McDonagh staggered six or seven steps, holding her back where she had been stabbed, and collapsed at her door.
At the request of defence counsel, Mr John MacMenamin SC, the stained nine-inch bread-knife with a serrated edge was presented to the jury along with stained jeans worn at the time by the accused.
Mr MacMenamin then asked a garda to demonstrate for the jury how securely the knife would rest in the back pocket of the jeans if they were shaken slightly. The knife fell out on to the floor.
Prosecution counsel, Mr Ralph Sutton SC, then questioned Mr Foley, who said that when Mr McDonagh wore the jeans, the "pocket was not loose. The pocket was more straight up," he said.
Another witness, Mr Niall O'Connor, said when Mr McDonagh arrived he started fighting with his wife, "hitting her, thumping her" and he "put her over the wall".
Mr O'Connor said he saw Mr McDonagh take a knife out of his right-hand pocket and stick it in her back.
Defence counsel challenged Mr O'Connor's recollection and his ability to identify the knife from 60 yards.
A suggestion that Mrs McDonagh had backed into the knife while Mr McDonagh held it was dismissed by Mr O'Connor as not right.
Another witness, Ms Mary Moroney, told the court that she did not see Mrs McDonagh "come up before the knife went into her".
Dr Anthony Dorman, a pathologist, told the court that the cause of Mrs McDonagh's death was a lack of blood due to massive haemorrhaging from a laceration in her left lung, where an instrument like a blade entered the body from the back.
The trial before Mr Justice O'Donovan and a jury of eight men and four women continues today.