A Mayo woman was acquitted of the murder of her baby daughter yesterday, 14 years after she smothered her to death with a pillow case. She has admitted the manslaughter of the child.
Mr Justice Kearns remanded Therese Ryan on continuing bail on condition that she remain at a psychiatric unit in St Mary's Hospital, Castlebar, before sentencing on April 19th next.
A jury took just over 2 1/2 hours to reach a majority verdict of not guilty to the murder charge brought by the DPP. They had earlier indicated they could not reach a unanimous verdict.
Ryan (41), of Tara Court Apartments, pleaded not guilty to the murder but guilty of the manslaughter of 15-month-old Elaine Ryan on September 5th, 1985 at Woodlands Drive, The Quays, Westport, Co Mayo.
At the time of the baby's death, a consultant pathologist, Dr Gerard Solan, found the "mechanism of death was asphyxia" and that the baby appeared well looked after and otherwise healthy.
Yesterday, the woman's defence counsel argued that the more "irrational and inexplicable" the killing appeared, the more the jurors were driven to find it "a great unexplained case".
Before the jury retired, Mr Justice Kearns told them that from the evidence it did appear that Ryan was "in crisis" at the time she smothered her sleeping daughter with a pillow.
He said they must take all the background circumstances of the case into account, including the fact that not only had Ryan given birth to Elaine 15 months before, she had also lost another baby daughter four months prior to the killing.
The court heard it took 12 years before Ryan told anybody what she had done. On July 16th, 1996, she had told a Western Health Board social worker, Ms Raphaelle McCabe. In the days following, she told a psychiatrist, her sister and finally, the Garda.
In addition to her two dead baby daughters, Ryan had three other children with her husband Sean before they separated in 1996. He was in court for the duration of the two-day trial and gave evidence for the prosecution.
In a lengthy statement made to Supt Malachy Mulligan and Det Sgt William Keaveney on July 20th, 1996, Ryan agreed nothing unusual had happened in the moments or hours prior to the killing and said her only explanation was "all the pressures of my life".
She accepted responsibility for what she had done but said she was "driven to it" by her husband's behaviour.
The jury also heard that Ryan told the social worker she didn't mean to smother Elaine, that it was meant for her son, then five years old.