Eamonn Lillis told gardai that his wife, Celine Cawley, was a ‘tough nut’ and would have confronted the burglar who he said he found attacking her before she died, the Central Criminal Court heard.
The jury in the trial of the 52-year-old film and television producer was listening to statements he gave gardaí in the hours and day following Ms Cawley’s death on December 15th, 2008.
Mr Lillis has pleaded not guilty to murdering the 46-year-old at their home, Rowan Hill, on Windgate Road, Howth, while their daughter was at school.
He admitted on Tuesday through his legal team that there was nobody else in the house that morning besides themselves. However he previously told detectives a detailed story about finding an intruder assaulting his wife on the deck behind their kitchen. A detective inspector had called in the air support unit to find the culprit.
“Celine is a fighter, a tough nut,“ he told detectives the day after she died, suggesting that she must have disturbed a burglar and chased him out the back door. “She would have confronted someone. She wasn’t a wallflower.”
Detective Sergeant Enda Mulryan read the two handwritten statements he took from the accused on December 15th and 16th 2008. In both, Mr Lillis gave the usual declaration to tell the truth or face prosecution.
He gave a thorough account of his morning and a detailed description of the man he said he saw. He said the man also attacked him, explaining the scratches and abrasions on his face, photos of which the jury was shown.
He said he got up at 6.30am that morning and did sit ups. At 6.50 he made tea and brought a cup to his wife of 17 years, whom he had met in Kinsale in September 1990. He explained that she had a bad cold and so he had slept in the upstairs bedroom while she slept downstairs.
He said they watched television in her bedroom until 7.40am when he went for a shower. He then brought their teenaged daughter to school in his Mercedes, unlocking the electric gates to leave.
He said he met an old college friend and spoke about getting ready for Christmas.
“I told her I put the lights up last night and they blew,” he said.
Photographs displayed in court on Tuesday showed the Christmas tree in one of the family’s sitting rooms.
He said he bought The Irish Times and drove home, unlocking the gate again.
“The dogs ran up to the car. I decided to take them for a walk,” he said of his Rhodesian Ridgeback; Cocker Spaniel; and Molly, an old Newfoundland. “I went into the washroom to get their leads and hooked up Sam and Harry.”
The court had already heard that the utility or wash room was accessed by an outside door to the front of the house. He said the door wasn’t locked and he did not see his wife at this stage.
They weren’t going to work until later and had a meeting scheduled for 2pm with their pension provider.
“Celine started the company. I came in about two years later as a partner,” he explained.
He described the route he took with the dogs and that he saw nobody on his walk. On returning he let the dogs off their lead and put some rubbish in the bin before going through the washroom into the kitchen.
“That’s when I saw him on top of Celine,” he said. “I don’t know what he was doing. He was at her top,” he continued. “I charged out the door, roaring.”
He said the assailant sprung to his feet and swung at him with a brick.
“I slipped,” he explained, giving details of the scuffle. “Then he legged it.” He didn’t know how he hurt his fingers, one of which had to be bandaged by ambulance staff as the nail had come away from the nail bed.
“He was wearing a ski mask… definitely not a homemade balaclava ,” he said, describing the man’s gloves as nylon and his jeans as dark blue. “I saw his mouth. He was definitely a white male.”
“I saw him run away after he floored me,” he said, suggesting he ran towards the back of the garden, where there was a six-feet high fence.
“We had fencing put up to the back after the last burglary,” he explained.
Mr Lillis said that he went numb when he saw no movement from his wife but managed to dial 999.
“When I pressed on her, she exhaled,” he said, explaining that he performed CPR on the instructions of the emergency call taker.
“We’ve no enemies,” he said. “I can only assume it was a burglar.”
He said he suspected the man was wearing a balaclava because they might have known him. He named the man they suspected of burgling the house before.
“It was never proven,” he said, adding that they had received a warning that he was back in the area carrying out more burglaries.
Mr Lillis went into even more detail in his second statement.
“I don’t know if it was my imagination, but I think she opened her eyes. I don’t know,” he said, referring to when he was trying to check his wife’s pulse. He now said that this was after he passed out due to the intruder hitting him. He didn’t know for how long he passed out.
He also gave more detail about the 5’11” attacker’s clothes, saying there was a cream or white stripe around the balaclava and the sleeves of the bomber jacket were a different colour and material to the rest of it.
“It was a bit like a garda’s jacket,” he said.
D Sgt Mulryan said that not long after the accused was brought to the garda station he asked to go to the toilet. When he asked Mr Lillis not to wash his hands, he said he had already washed them at home.
Dr Haroon Khan said he attended Mr Lillis at the garda station on the evening of his wife’s death.
“I noted he had multiple visible scratch marks on his right forehead and the left side of his face,” he said. His left ring finger and right little finger were also injured and there were abrasions on his knee caps.
“The injuries were consistent with his being in a struggle with another person,” he said.
Detective Inspector Angela Willis, who is in charge of the investigation, gave evidence of meeting Mr Lillis in his kitchen as his wife was being stretchered away.
When she asked him for his consent to have the house forensically and technically examined, he replied: “Whatever it takes. I just want him caught.”
The trial continues before Mr Justice Barry White and a jury of six women and six men.