The wife of a man who became a murder suspect following the death of Mr Richie Barron phoned a neighbour looking for her husband in the early hours of the morning the Raphoe cattle dealer died, a witness has told the Morris tribunal.
Mrs Irene Dolan told the tribunal that Ms Róisín McConnell, wife of Mr Mark McConnell, called her home in the early hours of October 14th, 1996.
Mr McConnell and his cousin Mr Frank McBrearty became the lead suspects when the Garda investigation into Mr Barron's death became a murder inquiry.
The witness said she left the pub late after closing time, with her husband Frank and daughter Laura, and went home, where they received a phone call. "Laura answered the phone... she said Róisín wants to speak to me," Mrs Dolan said.
"She just asked was Mark there. She thought there might be a party because of Laura's birthday. She said she was worried because he'd been in an argument with Richie in the pub that night, and Richie had been the victim of a hit and run."
The chairman asked Mrs Dolan if Róisín had gone into why she was worried any further. Mrs Dolan said Róisín only said she was worried because the two men "had words".
In her evidence last year, Róisín McConnell said her husband was with her the night Mr Barron died, and she telephoned the Dolan home looking for her brother, not her husband.
Sgt Martin Moylan said he worked in the incident room set up following the death of Mr Barron. His first involvement with the case was two days after Mr Barron died, when he went to the conference room and started to set up an incident room.
"Am I to take it there was not an incident room until Wednesday?" asked the chairman.
"That would be my reading of it, yes," the sergeant said, "Supt Fitzgerald ran the show, he gave directions" he said.
He said Supt Kevin Lennon took over the investigation as district officer when Supt Fitzgerald was transferred in February 1997.
After receiving a statement from Mr Noel McBride, he said, gardaí "firmly believed" it was a murder. In Mr McBride's statement, which he later retracted, he said he saw Mr McBrearty and Mr McConnell at around the time of Mr Barron's death coming from the direction where he was found.
The Interim Report of Mr Justice Frederick Morris on the Explosives Module will go on sale tomorrow at 2.30 p.m. at the Government Publications Office, Molesworth Street, in CD and book form, for €5 per copy.