Neighbour heard wailing from alleged murder victim's house

Father-of-one Stephen Cahoon (aged 37) of Harvey Street, Derry, admits killing the mother of his unborn child that day in her home at Cornshell Fields, Shantallow. However he has pleaded not guilty to the murder of his ex-girlfriend.

Ms Mellon explained that she had to check on her sick daughter every two hours at the time and set alarms for 1am, 3am and 5am. She said it was dark when she heard the wailing so it must have been 3am or 5am.

She said that after she checked her daughter at one of these times, she had a cigarette in her kitchen at the back of her house. Ms Quigley’s home was next door to the house directly behind hers.

“It was a very still, warm evening. I had my kitchen window open. It was very quiet,” she recalled.

“It was a very disturbing noise,” she said of the sound coming from Ms Quigley’s home.

“The only way I can describe it was if you told someone that someone had died suddenly and they wail,” she explained. “That wailing sound someone makes when very distressed or upset.”

Ms Mellon, who did not know Ms Quigley, was certain that it was a female voice, but said she also heard a male voice.

“I couldn’t make out what he was saying,” she said. “He didn’t appear to be roaring or mad, but a very stern, loud voice is what I heard.”

She said the wailing started about a minute after she entered her kitchen and was continuing when she left 10 minutes later.

The partner of Ms Quigley’s sister, Ann Marie, said he found parcel tape beside her body that evening.

Peter Barr said that he drove Ms Quigley’s mother, Emma McBride, to the victim’s house after her family failed to contact her throughout the day.

He said Ms McBride unlocked the door and went upstairs calling her daughter’s name while he checked downstairs.

He ran upstairs when he heard Ms McBride in a distraught state.

“The first thing I noticed when I walked into the room was Jean’s leg hanging out of the bed,” he said, adding that her body was partially covered by a quilt and her head was towards the bottom of the bed.

He checked for a pulse but it was apparent she was dead, he said.

As he was ringing the police from the landing, he noticed a length of brown parcel tape on the floor beside the bed.

“I picked the tape up,” he said. “Then I thought to myself what it might have been used for and put it back down.” He explained that he had seen bruising on her wrists.

Mr Barr also saw a knife on a chest of drawers.

Taxi driver Anthony Fiel told Patricia McLoughlin BL, prosecuting, that he was called to bring a fare from the defendant’s flat to Ms Quigley’s house about 1.55am that morning.

“I just remember the lad was standing at the door with a holdall,” he said, describing the passenger, who sat in the front, as quiet. “When we got to the entrance to Cornshell Fields, he asked to be dropped off there.”

Michael O’Higgins SC, defending, said his client had no recollection of carrying anything, and that Mr Fiel had not mentioned the holdall in his first statement.

“Well I was kind of taken aback. As the days passed, I remembered he was standing at the door with a holdall,” explained Mr Fiel. “I was shocked at the thought that someone who had killed someone was sitting in the car with me.”

Mathew Gallagher, another taxi driver, said he collected a fare from the bus shelter on Steelstown Road about 6.30am that morning. The jury had already heard that the taxi was booked under the name, Duddy.

The man in his 30s sat in the front seat.

“He wouldn’t make conversation,” he said. “I tried two or three times”

“He was going to the bus depot,” he recalled.

However the passenger changed the destination and Mr Gallagher dropped him off at Ship Quay Street around 10 minutes later.

He confirmed to Mr O’Higgins in cross examination that this is about a minute’s walk from Harvey Street, where his client lived.

The trial continues before Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy and a jury of seven women and five men.