Murder accused admits relationship with Sandra

ON TRIAL?Martin Earley is pictured in December 2012 arriving at Ballina District Court to be charged with the murder of Sandra Collins.

Murder accused admits relationship with Sandra


Anton McNulty

A MAN accused of the murder of a missing Killala woman admitted to Gardaí that he had a sexual relationship with her. He also claimed she demanded IRP£1,000 from him just hours before her disappearance.
The trial of Martin Earley of Banagher, Carrowmore-Lacken, Ballina, for the murder of Sandra Collins began last Tuesday in the Central Criminal Court in Castlebar.
The court heard evidence of the final sighting of Ms Collins before she disappeared in Killala on December 4, 2000. Her body has never been recovered, and her sister, Bridie Conway, told the court that she does not believe she is alive. Ms Collins was 29 years old at the time of her disappearance.
During the first week of the trial, Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy and the court heard evidence that Ms Collins of 8 Courthouse Street, Killala, was told she was pregnant just days before her disappearance, and that she had informed her doctor that she did not intend to go through with the pregnancy.
The jury of nine men and three women also heard that the pink fleece Ms Collins was wearing on the night she disappeared was discovered five days later on Killala pier. Included in the pocket of the fleece were two pieces of paper, one of which contained Mr Earley’s mobile number. The other contained two telephone numbers of abortion clinics in the UK.
Mr Earley (49), a plasterer by trade, denies the murder of Ms Collins and having anything to do with her disappearance. When he was first interviewed by gardaí, he initially denied having a relationship with Ms Collins but in a later interview he accepted there was a ‘sexual contact’ with her and he ‘tried his case with Sandra’. More details of this relationship are expected to emerge later in the trial.

Gardaí criticised
In his cross examination of local investigating gardaí, Mr MicheΡl O’Higgins, SC defending Mr Earley, was scathing in his criticism of the investigation, describing it as ‘shoddy’, ‘particularly at local level in Killala’. There was ‘incompetence’ in the investigation, he said.
At the start of the trial, Mr Denis Vaughan Buckley, SC for the prosecution outlined the evidence against Mr Earley, saying he felt there was ‘ample evidence’ to convict him of murder. He told the jury that they will hear evidence that Ms Collins phoned Mr Earley’s mobile from a phonebox in Killala on the day she disappeared, and that the State was also satisfied Mr Earley called that phone box.

Fleece found
The main evidence heard during the first week of the trial was from retired garda John Kennedy.
The court heard that Ms Collins’s pink fleece was found in a puddle of water on Killala pier by Garda Kennedy and a local fisherman on December 9, 2000, while divers were searching the water.
Now retired, Garda Kennedy told the court that after picking up the fleece, he examined it and said he knew then ‘in my heart and soul’ that the jacket was Sandra’s. Ms Collins’s aunt Ann O’Grady, who Ms Collins lived with, and Ms Collins’s sister Bridie both later identified the fleece as Sandra’s.
Garda Kennedy told the court that he found a packet of sausages in one of the pockets of the fleece.

Changing statements
Garda Kennedy, who served in Killala for 21 years, explained that on December 7, he was in Killala station at 8.10pm with Detective Sergeant John McCormack and Garda Tony Darcy when Mr Earley came into the station to enquire about Ms Collins. He claimed Mr Earley said he heard his name had come up during enquiries about Ms Collins, and he told the Gardaí he had met her in a pub in Killala two weeks before.
Garda Kennedy added that after 45 minutes Mr Earley got agitated and asked if he was under arrest. When he was told he was not and was free to go, he got up and left without signing the statement.
On December 20, 2000, Mr Earley made another statement to Garda Kennedy, in which he explained that he was first introduced to Ms Collins in September 2000 and met her again on September 29, 2000, in a pub in Killala while socialising with work colleagues. He claimed Ms Collins started talking to him about the death of her brother, who died in a work accident in June 2000.
“I found this very strange her telling me all this ... I was a stranger to her. I did not want to insult her by cutting her short, so I sat listening to her,” he said.
On the following Monday, he said, Sandra’s aunt, Ann O’Grady, who is now deceased, called his home and spoke to his wife and told her he was having an affair with Sandra. When he got home from work, he said his wife was angry, but he denied the affair and his wife believed him.
“I have not seen her since,” he told Garda Kennedy, adding: “I never had an affair with her other than to listen to her troubles.”
Garda Kennedy said that on June 8, 2001, he was walking towards Ballina Garda Station when he was approached by Mr Earley. He said that Earley asked him about the Collins family and said: ‘If the Collins family got a bone would they be happy?’. Garda Kennedy added that Mr Earley ‘hinted’ that if a bone was found on the shore it would finalise the investigation and it would go away. Garda Kennedy said that he told Earley that the investigation would continue if this occurred.
Garda Kennedy said he found Mr Earley to be nervous and the comments made by him to be strange. Garda Kennedy said that when he reached the garda station, he told his superintendent, the late Tim Tully, who told him to type out a memo of the conversation.
The court also heard that Mr Earley gave a later statement to gardaí, in which he said that Ms Collins phoned him and asked for £1,000 on the day she disappeared. Garda Kennedy said that when he asked Mr Earley why he had not mentioned this before, the accused responded that he was afraid on account of his wife.

Garda evidence challanged
Mr O’Higgins said his client denied that the alleged conversation with Garda Kennedy on June 8, 2001, ever took place and that his client was not in Ballina on the day. He also claimed that it was ‘convenient’ that the person he reported the conversation to was now dead – a suggestion that Garda Kennedy refuted.
Mr O’Higgins added that when Mr Earley was later interviewed by detectives from Mayo and Dublin, they did not ask him about the comments his client was alleged to have made to Garda Kennedy.
Mr O’Higgins alleged during questioning that there was ‘history’ between Garda Kennedy and his client over a conviction that Mr Earley received for having no tax on his car in 1989. Mr Earley had been angry at Garda Kennedy’s role in the conviction, he said.
Mr O’Higgins claimed there was a confrontation between the two men, which Garda Kennedy denied.
“My client got irate with you and got nasty and made allegations about you. He brought up nasty stories of you and other women,” Mr O’Higgins said to Garda Kennedy.
“There was no confrontation. I have no knowledge of Mr Earley’s grievances or grudges against me,” Garda Kennedy said.
The court heard that Garda Kennedy gave a statement to gardaí in which he denied having a relationship with Ms Collins, as had been alleged by Mr Earley.
Garda Kennedy also denied Mr Earley’s claim that he was asked by gardaí to attend the garda station to make a statement on December 7.
Mr O’Higgins said that when his client made his second statement to Garda Kennedy, Garda Darcy was present when Mr Earley arrived and was alleged to have said, “I’ll leave you at it. Don’t kill each other.” Garda Kennedy denied Garda Darcy was present and claimed he was the only garda in the station.
During the course of the questioning, the court heard that Ms Collins had been in a relationship with a local man named Patrick McDonnell, who now resides in the US. In an interview with gardaí, Mr McDonnell said the relationship ended in July 2000, but he conceded that he and Sandra had a sexual relationship following this. He also told gardaí that he met Ms Collins in Birrane’s shop in Killala on the evening of her disappearance.
In his evidence, Garda Tony Darcy said he was in Ballina Garda Station on December 11, 2000 when he searched the pockets of Ms Collins’s fleece and found the two crumpled pieces of paper in one of the pockets, one bearing Earley’s phone number, the other bearing the numbers of the abortion clinics in the UK.
Garda Darcy denied Mr Earley’s claims that he contacted him to come to Killala Garda Station on December 7 and that he was present when he arrived at the station on December 20.
The trial continues today and is expected to take another two weeks.

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