A WATERFORD man accused of murdering his wife has told a jury at the Central Criminal Court that he had no idea he would end up facing a murder investigation.
John O'Brien (41), Ballinakill Downs, Co Waterford, denies murdering Meg Walsh (35) between October 1st, 2006, and October 15th, 2006.
Ms Walsh's body was recovered from the River Suir on October 15th. She had died from blunt force trauma to the head.
Speaking in his own defence, Mr O'Brien told Paddy McCarthy SC he had taken "no hand, act or part" in his wife's murder.
He told prosecuting counsel Denis Vaughan Buckley SC that he had not told gardaí any lies. "I didn't think it was going to come to this. I didn't know it was going to be a murder investigation."
He denied that that this was because he had not expected the body to be found.
Mr O'Brien said he had been "about 45 or 50 minutes out" in his account of Sunday, October 1st, when he said he last saw his wife. He said he had returned home at about 5pm, although it could have been closer to 6pm, and he had heard his wife leave the house and drive off at about 8.30pm.
He said that a colleague, Kevin Barry, who had given evidence earlier in the trial, was "totally wrong". Mr Barry told the jury that, on October 2nd or 3rd, Mr O'Brien had told him he had returned home from a walk at 5pm that evening and Ms Walsh's car had already been gone.
Mr O'Brien said he did not think Mr Barry was lying. "That's what he thinks I told him." Mr O'Brien agreed with Mr Buckley that he was a black belt in Taekwondo but said he had not practised martial arts for 20 years.
He had told gardaí searching for her passport where he thought she kept it. "Where I told them I thought it was, that's where they found it." However, he agreed he had not found it himself. He said he had searched the bedside locker where it was found but must have concentrated more on the two drawers it was not in.
Mr O'Brien said he had Ms Walsh's silver Mitsubishi Carisma on several occasions and had frequently put things in the boot of the car where his DNA had been found. He said he had not been driving the Carisma on Monday, October 2nd, the night the car was abandoned in the car park of the Uluru pub in Waterford city centre.
He said he had been parked in the nearby Tesco car park when he was watching the house of Owen Walsh, the man his wife had kissed the previous night and who he thought she had left to be with. He said he had left at about 9pm.
He did not answer when he was told that no dark-coloured Mazda car had been seen leaving the Tesco car park at this time although one did leave at 10.08pm, five minutes after the Carisma was left in the Uluru car park.
He said he had picked up a message on his phone at 9.38pm from the Waterford Castle turn-off towards the Dunmore Road.
When asked why the alarm at his house, a few minutes' drive away, had not been switched off until 10.11pm, he said that he had driven back into Waterford city to look for his wife's car parked outside friends' houses for a second time.
Mr O'Brien rejected the suggestion that he had a motive to kill his wife. He said that he had been in the process of signing over the deeds of the house to her after he had assaulted her some days earlier. This move, he said, was "just to prove it would never happen again".
Mr Buckley told him that not only did he have a motive but he had an opportunity to murder her.
"You did in fact murder your wife, Meg Walsh. You had an opportunity to kill her and a motive to kill her and you did it. You killed her."
Mr O'Brien replied: "No, I didn't."
The jury also heard from Samantha Raincock, who told Mr McCarthy that the cells that picked up Mr O'Brien's call when he called his message service at 9.38pm could have picked up his signal from the Waterford Castle turning where he said he had been at the time.
She agreed with Dominic McGinn, prosecuting, that the same masts also covered the Uluru car park where the prosecution claim Mr O'Brien was at the time.
Edward Flahavan, a consultant engineer, told Mr McCarthy that a hot wash on the washing machine at the O'Brien house would have taken almost two hours. It has been suggested that Mr O'Brien washed some of his clothes when he returned home in his lunch hour on October 2nd. Gardaí noted that the temperature dial was turned to 90 degrees.
Mr Flahavan told Mr McGinn that he had not had access to the instruction manual for the machine and so had not known that the temperature dial could be used to select the temperature of the wash on any cycle.
Gregory Manberg told Mr McCarthy that he had seen Ms Walsh's silver Carisma at 6.20pm. It was driven by a well-built, dark-haired man. Mr Manberg said he had first noticed the Carisma because he thought it was his boss's car, that he was checking up on the staff. He was a mechanic by trade and had a habit of noting down licence numbers and makes of cars.
The trial will continue in its final stages today before Mr Justice Barry White and the jury.