Court hears murder accused told teenagers he had killed a widow pensioner
The Central Criminal Court has heard that a murder accused told two teenage boys that he killed a widow pensioner in Kilkenny in 1987.
53-year-old John Joseph Malone of Newpark in Kilkenny City denies strangling Anne ‘Nancy’ Smyth before setting her home on fire.
During the summer of 1988, PJ Dooley went on a retreat to Tramore for a few days with his local Presbyterian Church in Kilkenny.
Sometime after 9pm on one of the nights, he said John Joseph Malone knocked on his window and came in for a chat. He said he seemed upset.
After he let him in, Mr Dooley said he told him he had killed Nancy.
He said he told him and his roommate that he’d gone to her house on Wolfe Tone Street to “rob the place” and strangled her when he came across her in the hallway.
He told the jury Mr Malone then told them he set the house on fire. He said he was crying and he advised him to go to the guards.
Under cross-examination, defence barrister Coleman Cody put it to him that it never happened. Mr. Dooley said he had “absolutely no doubt whatsoever” that it did.
Mr. Malone denies the charge.
