A DERRY man who strangled the mother of his unborn son has been sentenced to life imprisonment after being found guilty of her murder at the Central Criminal Court in Dublin.
Stephen Cahoon (39), also known as Stephen Moore, admitted strangling Jean Teresa Quigley (30), who was 10 weeks pregnant, on July 26th, 2008.
The trial in Dublin relating to a crime in Northern Ireland made legal history. Along with a previous trial when the jury did not agree it was the first criminal case of its type held before a jury under the provisions that allow a defendant the option of trial in either jurisdiction.
Previous Dublin trials under the provisions of the Criminal Law Jurisdiction Act 1976, mostly relating to paramilitary-type offences, have been before the non-jury Special Criminal Court.
In this case Cahoon, an unemployed labourer and father of one from Harvey Street, Derry, pleaded not guilty to murdering Ms Quigley in her home at Cornshell Fields, Derry.
The jury took 4½ hours over three days to reach a unanimous verdict at the Central Criminal Court yesterday. Cahoon showed no emotion when the verdict was read out, but Ms Quigley’s family sobbed. Another jury failed to reach a verdict following his first trial in 2009.
The two-week trial heard that Ms Quigley, a mother of four, had recently broken up with Cahoon and that she was shaking the day she told him to leave her house, about two weeks before the killing.
The jury saw text messages she sent him in the days before her death in which she described him as a “nutter” and told him she wanted him out of her life.
However, Cahoon went unannounced to Ms Quigley’s house at about 2am on the day she died. He said he wanted to give her money for dog food.
He got a taxi to her estate, but not all the way to her house. He denied the taxi driver’s assertion that he had a holdall with him.
Cahoon claimed Ms Quigley let him inside. However, police later found that a front door had been forced in. Cahoon claimed she said he could sleep with her and tied him up with handcuffs and some parcel tape before having sex twice.
He claimed his phone rang during sex and she told him to get out when she discovered a female friend was calling him. He said he told her he did not want to leave as she had already told him he could stay the night and he wanted to stay with her and his baby.
He claimed she began screaming that the child was not his and that she was having an abortion.“I snapped,” he said. “I just grabbed her by the throat. I wanted her to be quiet.” He said he did not mean to kill her when he pressed down on her neck for about a minute. He could not explain why her head, body, arms and legs were covered in bruises. He said he had tried to give her CPR. The court heard yesterday that Cahoon had previous convictions for violent crimes against women.
Det Garda John Breslin said Cahoon had indecently assaulted a stranger in Ballymena in 1997, unlawfully and maliciously causing the woman grievous bodily harm. The Crown Prosecution Service appealed the three-year sentence and it was increased to four years. Det Garda Breslin said Cahoon was also convicted of threatening to kill a previous partner and of 12 counts of assault causing her actual bodily harm in the same year. He was sentenced to 15 months in prison to run concurrently to the previous sentence. However, this was changed to a consecutive sentence on appeal.
Ms Quigley’s family described her as a “strong, independent woman” in a victim impact statement read out by Patricia McLaughlin, prosecuting. She was the youngest of five children, each of whom had been devastated by her death.
Cahoon stood while Mr Justice Barry White imposed the mandatory life sentence for murder.
The judge said that had the verdict been manslaughter, he would have had discretion in sentencing, “but given your previous offensive behaviour towards women, it is clear to me you’re a danger to society in general and to women in particular”.
Some members of Ms Quigley’s family shouted abuse at Cahoon as he was led away.