The wife of a Dublin chip shop owner, Ms Anna Maria Sacco (21), yesterday pleaded not guilty in the Central Criminal Court to the murder of Mr Franco Sacco (29) at their home on Coolamber Road, Templeogue, Dublin, on March 20th, 1997.
The prosecution alleges Ms Sacco "brought about" the killing of her husband, though a teenage girl pulled the trigger "on her behalf". The girl, named in court, was 15 at the time and was staying at the Coolamber Road house.
Mr Peter Charleton SC, prosecuting, yesterday told the court that on the morning he died, Mr Sacco had been at home in the bedroom he shared with his wife. He was lying face down on his bed, possibly sleeping, when someone came in and fired a shotgun at him at "relatively close range".
"It is our case that the person who brought about the killing was Anna Maria Sacco."
The gun used was Mr Sacco's legally-held sporting shotgun. The scene of the killing was "gruesome", said Mr Charleton. A "sporting type" of ammunition had been directed at Mr Sacco's head. "The result was effectively that the top of his head was blown off" and he died instantaneously, or almost so.
From where he was shot, his body had been dragged across the mattress and on to the floor, where it was covered in "clothing of various kinds", including quilt covers and sheets.
The body was wrapped up, perhaps to dispose of it, or perhaps to make the scene more palatable, said Mr Charleton.
Mr Sacco and Ms Sacco, of Coolamber Park, about a mile from Rathfarnham, both worked at Luigi's chip shop in the village, the court heard. "There were, however, unhappy differences between him and his wife." These differences had led to the decision of the accused "to murder Franco Sacco". In doing so she was "acting in concert with another person, herself a person of Italian-Irish extraction".
Mr Charleton said the jury would hear of the couple's matrimonial difficulties. Where there was "disharmony" in any marriage, there were other options open to persons with such problems.
"No matter how bad a person is, it is never the case that it is right to kill them." He added that even if Mr Sacco was bad to his wife, or "downright cruel" to her, the issue "is not whether Franco Sacco is a good or a bad person: the issue is whether Anna Maria Sacco intended to kill him".
He said, for legal reasons, the teenage girl would not be called to give evidence. He told the jury: "She was the person who pulled the trigger" but it was not for them to speculate on what she might have said. Her case was a different case.
It was, nevertheless, the State's case was that "the instrument of the death of Franco Sacco was `this girl', acting on behalf of Anna Maria Sacco".
Ms Sacco "ensured her husband was killed in this way" by a gun discharged at his head. The teenage girl did it "as a result of an agreement with" Ms Sacco "or as a result of being in cahoots" with her.
He said the prosecution would also seek to prove that persons, including Ms Sacco, had engaged in "a clean-up attempt" in the area of the killing. Smears of blood on the walls and radiator indicated such an attempt.
Garda Ronan Walden told Mr Fergal Foley BL, prosecuting, that he was working at the front desk in Rathfarnham Garda station on March 20th, 1997, when two women entered, one a teenage girl he knew "from her working in Luigi's chipper".
The girl was "very distressed". "Hysterical is the only way I can describe her." She was with another woman who was emotional but not hysterical. As a result of what she told him over 30 minutes, gardai went to the Sacco house.
Cross-examined by Mr Barry White SC, for the accused, Garda Walden agreed that, "in essence", what the girl told him was that she had shot Mr Sacco, that she implicated herself in the killing and that she did not "by any manner or means" implicate Ms Sacco.
Garda Patrick Norville told how he came upon the "commotion" at the front desk in the station and took keys to the Sacco house from the girl and arrived there at 7.40 p.m., along with five other gardai.
He described discovering the body of Mr Sacco. In the bath, there was a basin, brush and cloth and what appeared to be tissue attached to it.
At around 8.40 p.m., he said, Ms Sacco and her sister arrived at the house. "There was no easy way to break it. I told her her husband was dead." She got very upset and hysterical.
She first said there must be some mistake, that he was only sleeping, and that if only she could see him, everything would be okay. Then she began kicking the front door and banging her head against it.
Under cross-examination, Garda Norville agreed with Mr White that at the front desk in the Garda station, the teenage girl had said words to the effect of: "I shot Franco."
A third Garda witness, Garda James Murphy said he had heard the girl admit to shooting Mr Sacco.
The teenage girl has separately pleaded guilty to the murder of Mr Sacco and is due for sentencing next month.
Garda witnesses said Mr Sacco's shotgun was found by gardai in the corner of a utility room-cum-cloakroom under the stairs. A number of unused shotgun cartridges were found in one of the bedrooms and "dozens, if not hundreds," of cartridges were stored in boxes on the top shelf of a garden shed.
Gardai gave evidence that the bed mattress was "extensively blood-stained" and "a spray of pellets from the shotgun" had left markings on the wall behind it.
Red splatters, which they took to be blood, were noted on the tiles in the bathroom wall and floor. There was blood-like red staining at the base of the inside of the toilet bowl, along with shotgun pellet and what appeared to be bone fragments. They also noted "a watered-down red colour in the sink".
The trial continues before Mr Justice Kevin O'Higgins.