A Dundalk man showed no emotion yesterday as he was cleared of the contract murder of a Newry civil servant, Mrs Rose Moran, but convicted of her manslaughter. A jury at Belfast Crown Court acquitted Philip Andrew Quigley (24) of the August 1991 murder, but found him guilty of the unlawful killing of Mrs Moran (32).
The mother of one was stabbed 37 times during a frenzied knife attack, which the prosecution claimed was set up by her husband, Joe. Her body was found on a couch in the hallway of her home in the Cooley Mountains, six miles from Newry.
Quigley, from St Nicholas Avenue, Dundalk, claimed that Mrs Moran was killed as she tried to foil a burglary which had been organised by her husband. He also claimed that her actual murderer was another Dundalk man, Mr Danny Larkin, who "went mad" and repeatedly stabbed her.
Quigley admitted that he too had stabbed Mrs Moran as she struggled with Mr Larkin, but only twice, and in an attempt to free him from her grip. He maintained that he never intended to kill Mrs Moran, whose home he had intended to rob, unaware that Mr Larkin had allegedly been hired to kill her. Quigley said it was not until a year later that Mr Larkin told him of a £5,000 contract to have Mrs Moran murdered.
In his confession to Garda detectives, Quigley, who was described as having a borderline mental handicap, had included himself in the contract, but he claimed that he had been forced to do so by Mr Larkin.
Quigley is the second person to be convicted in connection with the murder. In February 1995, Mr Joe Moran's lover, Anita McKeown, a niece of Mrs Moran by marriage, was jailed for eight years for plotting her murder.
Sentence on Quigley was adjourned pending presentation to the court of social inquiry reports.