A Dundalk man accused of the contract killing of his wife told Belfast Crown Court yesterday he confessed to the crime only to save the "real killer" being shot by the INLA. But later he said the reason was not to save the "real killer", who cannot be named for legal reasons, but to protect his family. "It wasn't to protect him. It was for his family. I didn't want anyone else to die," he said.
Mr Joe Moran (40), from Boyle O'Reilly Terrace, Dundalk, claimed his wife Rose (32) was killed by mistake during a burglary he admitted he had organised, but denied ordering her murder.
The blood-soaked body of the Newry civil servant, who was stabbed 37 times, was found slumped on a couch in the hallway of the Morans' isolated Border home on August 22nd, 1991.
Over a year after the stabbing, Mr Moran told the Garda he had organised the burglary at their home. He claimed that when his wife's killer discovered what he told detectives, he demanded he change his confession and implicate himself. Mr Moran claimed the man was present in his home when he wrote a 7-page statement to Garda detectives in which he admitted that he had ordered his wife's murder.
He also said his wife's killer claimed the INLA had tracked him down and had threatened to shoot him. "He told me he was under threat and if I didn't take the blame, if I didn't change my statement and say it was all my fault, he would be shot," Mr Moran claimed. "I did agree, and I told him I would change my statement," he added. Moran said he did not ask for his wife to be killed, only for two people to burgle their home as an "insurance job" to pay for a holiday to America for his wife, four-year-old son, Paul, and his mother-in-law.
He said that when he discovered who had stabbed his wife, he and the second burglar had wanted to go to the Garda, but that the killer said he "wasn't going to go to the police. He wasn't going to admit anything and it was all my fault.
"I think it was the following day he came to me saying: `It's your fault. You told me the house would be empty.' That's when I knew that he had killed Rose," Mr Moran added.
He said that at the time he did nothing about it because he "knew at the end of the day it was my fault that Rose got killed." During cross-examination, Mr Moran admitted that in his initial statements to detectives he lied about having nothing to do with the break-in. He also admitted that when he learned his wife had been stabbed, he didn't "go hunting" for the man he thought responsible because he "didn't know for a fact what happened".
"I didn't want anyone to tell how Rose died. I don't know why. I didn't want to hear," he said. Later Mr Moran claimed that the killer had wanted him to confess he was present when his wife was murdered and that he had actually killed her.
Mr Moran said: "I couldn't write that", but added that he wanted to take some of the blame because the man was going to be shot.
The trial continues today.