A tearful Mrs Catherine Nevin told a jury yesterday that when she saw her husband's body in Wicklow hospital the night after his murder, she wished she was dead as well.
Mrs Nevin was giving evidence at the Central Criminal Court, almost a week after her trial was adjourned when she was taken to hospital.
She said there was "no way" she had arranged the killing, and denied ever saying to a carpet fitter that her husband, and co-owner of Jack White's Inn, was a drunkard, that she did not like him, or that he was gay.
And she said she was "absolutely terrified" after being tied up by the armed raiders who shot her husband. She could not remember how she got downstairs from the bedroom where they left her bound and gagged. She did not use two mobile panic alarms in her bedroom because she had "no idea where they were."
She claimed her husband was an alcoholic, and that he drank late at night after the pub was closed.
The 49-year-old widow has pleaded not guilty to the murder of her husband, Mr Tom Nevin (54), on March 19th, 1996 in their home at Jack White's Inn, Ballinapark, near Brittas Bay in Co Wicklow.
She has also denied that on dates in 1989 she solicited Mr John Jones, that in or about 1990 she solicited Mr Gerry Heapes, and that on a date unknown in 1990 at St Vincent's Hospital, Dublin, she solicited Mr William McClean to murder her husband.
Yesterday was the 24th day of evidence before the jury. On Thursday morning last, as she was due to continue her evidence, Mrs Nevin was taken to hospital and the trial before Ms Justice Carroll was adjourned.
Mrs Nevin was asked yesterday by her counsel, Mr Patrick MacEntee SC, about her late husband's drinking.
"Well, Tom was an alcoholic, but Tom was a very disciplined alcoholic," she said.
He would not drink during the day unless he was at a function, but "most nights he would stay up drinking by himself after the pub closed," she said. He preferred to drink alone.
Over the years there would have been "several occasions" when she saw him drunk, she told counsel. "The one in particular I recall was where he was drinking with the policeman and I was assaulted," she told the court.
Mrs Nevin said it was "house policy" at the inn to be very hospitable to anyone delivering to or working on the premises, but she had not sat down and chatted with a carpet fitter, Mr Donncha Long, while he was working there the week before the murder.
Mr MacEntee put to her that it was the evidence of Mr Donncha Long that she told him that Mr Nevin was a drunkard, that she did not like him, and that he was having a sexual affair with the barman with whom he had gone on holidays.
"That conversation never happened, my lord," she said. Her husband "most certainly" had not had an affair with the barman, she said, and was "definitely not" a homosexual.
She denied giving any directions to staff that they could not stay on the premises on the night of the murder.
On Monday, March 18th, 1996, she took a B12 injection for her pernicious anaemia some time before 12 o'clock, and later that night took a tablet which prevented swelling of her hands and legs, she told the court. She began work at around 12:45 p.m. She had her period, she was very tired, and her eyes were giving her problems.
She believed Mr Nevin came downstairs at around two o'clock.
She denied that it was unusual for the curtains in the old dining room to be fully drawn, as they were on the night of the murder.
Mr Peter Charleton SC, prosecuting, rose to object to this line of examination.
Following legal argument in their absence, the jury returned and Mrs Nevin told her counsel she had "no idea" how the curtains were closed on the night of the murder. She "certainly didn't" draw them, she said.
She told the jury that when Mr Nevin returned after dropping customers home when the pub closed that night, Sgt Dominick McElligott was still there. She let him out and just closed the front door after him. She did not mortice-lock it, because Mr Nevin always locked the door last thing before going to bed.
Her voice quavering, she described her last words with her husband before she went to bed.
She was awakened by "somebody pushing my head into the pillow".
"He kept shouting, `Fucking jewellery, I'll fucking kill you', he said that several times." She felt something on her back, like a knee or a foot.
When he released her head, she pointed to where the jewellery was in the wardrobe. She saw that he had a thin knife with a long blade, and "something woollen on his face."
Her attacker tied her ankles to her hands. He then put something soft into her mouth, which the jury has heard was a pair of panties.
"I felt as if I was going to choke, as if I was going to swallow this." She heard a sound like a saucepan falling on the floor.
Something was then tied over the gag and she heard a shout from downstairs. "And then that was it, all I could hear then was the rain . . . and I heard two cars starting off."
She eventually succeeded in undoing the knots on the soft piece of material that was nearest to her hands.
She got to the phone near her bed and flicked the receiver off with her tied hands and tried to dial 999, but failed. She pressed the panic button at the front door "over and over". Garda McAndrews and Garda Comiskey came within minutes, she felt.
"I wanted to see Tom, to see if he was all right," a tearful Mrs Nevin said.
Eventually Dr Buggle told her Mr Nevin was dead but she did not believe him.
"I just felt so sick, I was terrified, I was numb, I didn't want to believe it, I was . . . it just couldn't possibly have happened," she said.
Mr MacEntee put it to his client that the prosecution case was that she somehow arranged the killing of her husband.
"That is not so, no way," she replied in a low voice. "No way, God, no way," she continued, her voice a whisper.
She did not see Mr Nevin's body before it was removed. She added, "I was told that I could see it in Wicklow Hospital the day before the burial."
Asked how she felt when she saw her late husband's body, she replied, "I just wished I was dead as well."
Mrs Nevin will resume her evidence today.