Two accused of strangling woman in bedsit
Two Cork men robbed then strangled their 50-year-old neighbour with a piece of cable and tried to make it look like suicide, a court heard today.
Prosecution counsel Mr Alex Owens SC told a murder trial jury at the Central Criminal Court that Thomas Penkert, aged 21, and Brian Walsh, aged 22, murdered Nora Kiely after robbing her of €20 in Cork on July 15, 2002.
"The evidence will be effectively that on that date at about 9.30pm or 9.40pm they broke into Nora Kiely's bedsit for the purpose of robbery and during the course of that Nora Kiely was strangled," he told the jury.
"The accused came in, Nora Kiely was strangled, this particular flex was used and she was killed.
"When the gardaí arrived at about midnight she was lying on the bed naked from the waist down and she was dead.
"A crude attempt was made to effectively pretend in some way that she committed suicide by placing of the knife in her hand."
The two accused lived in the same apartment building as Ms Kiely close to the centre of Cork.
Both Penkert and Walsh - who shared an address at Leitrim St in Cork - have pleaded not guilty to Ms Kiely's murder.
But they have both admitted robbing Ms Kiely of less than €20 in cash and two items of jewellery.
The two men denied a charge that they attempted to enter another flat in the building with intent to inflict grievous bodily harm on Theresa Tatton on July 15, 2002.
But they pleaded guilty to stealing a blue-handled knife, a tub of butter, some groceries and drinks and a phone charger from this address.
They pleaded not guilty to a charge that between July 8 and July 14 in 2002 they robbed Donal Scannell of less than €70 in cash.
The case continues today before Mr Justice Diarmuid O'Donovan and a jury of six men and six women.
