An alcoholic Welsh woman has been found guilty of the murder of a Leitrim man she stabbed 13 times during a drunken row at his flat in Dublin last year.
At the Central Criminal Court today after 2½ hours of deliberations a jury of seven women and five men returned a unanimous verdict to find Ms Christina Williams (25), guilty of the murder of Mr Andrew Foley (54), at his basement flat on Nelson Street, in Dublin's north inner city, on May 7th, 2002. Williams had denied the charge.
Ms Williams appeared agitated in court during most of the three-day trial, even shaking her fist angrily at one witness and smirking and laughing at others. Today she leaned forward towards the jury as the verdict was announced. When Mr Justice Kevin O'Higgins told Ms Williams he had no option but to sentence her to the mandatory life sentence, Ms Williams looked shocked, sat down and told the jury to "f*** off".
When the court rose as Mr Justice O'Higgins left, Ms Williams refused to stand up, telling prison officers: "No, I don't want to stand up." Leave to appeal was refused to her defence counsel, Mr Gerry O'Brien SC.
Speaking outside the courtroom afterwards, the wife and two daughters of the deceased said some sort of closure had been reached with the guilty verdict.
"I've just sensed evil off that woman, which is very unusual for me because I believe in social justice" said Mrs Foley. "She was very concerned for herself but showed no remorse for what she had done," she added. Mr Foley's eldest daughter, Lorraine, said "you couldn't but be happy" at the verdict and said the family would now be getting on with their lives.
Mr Foley bled to death in an armchair in his basement flat after Ms Williams stabbed him 13 times in his eye, chest and groin, breaking the blade of one knife on him before putting a kettle of water on to boil and pouring the contents over him.
The then deputy state pathologist, Dr Marie Cassidy, told the court that the haphazard pattern of wounds suggested a struggle and that Mr Foley died from blood loss due to a punctured lung and a severed artery in the groin.
In his closing statement, defence counsel Mr O'Brien told the jury of Ms Williams' alcoholism and "chaotic existence that would be foreign to a lot of us" during her five weeks in Ireland prior to Mr Foley's death.