In court yesterday Joe O'Reilly went through his movements on the day of the murder. He said he left his home near the Naul, Co Dublin about 5.20am and arrived at Jackie Skelly's Gym in Citywest at 6.20.
"About two or three weeks ago, I would call over to Nikki Pelley's house in the morning, instead of going to the gym." On this morning, he said: "Nikki rang me to ask me if I was going to call over and I said 'no'." He said that after that, Derek Quearney arrived at the gym and they went through a plan for the day.
He said he arrived in work about 7.45am. He then left at 8.25am to inspect posters put up by Damien Tully at the Dublin Bus garage in Phibsboro.
He said he did not speak to anyone until 9.30am, when Mr Quearney called him. They moved to inspect posters in the neighbouring Broadstone bus garage next door. At about 10am, he said he sent a text message to Rachel. "It was just to see how she and the kids were," he said. After inspecting the buses he said they left at about 11.30am, arriving back in work in Viacom in Bluebell Industrial Estate at about 12 midday.
He said Ms Pelley called him a short time after that, asking whether they were meeting for lunch, but that he told her he could not as he was meeting his friend.
"At 1.15pm, I received a call from Helen in Tots United creche to say that Rachel had not collected Adam. It was very unusual." He picked up Adam but when he went to collect his other son Luke from Hedgestown national school, he found he had already been collected by another mother.
He then went straight to the house. He told gardaí: "I was so relieved to see Rachel's car. I thought thank God she's at home she must have fallen asleep.
He said he moved a box which had been in the way and touched Rachel's face, hands, arms and legs. "I didn't believe Rachel was dead," he said.
A paramedic told him Rachel was dead, he said.
"I felt sick and went outside. I think I had a glass of water." He said when gardaí arrived, they asked whether he noticed anything strange about the house. He told them a number of items were out of place, including DVDs which had been strewn across the floor.
The curtains were also pulled over which was unusual and that the dishes were not washed. "I got blood on my hands and on my trousers. I steadied myself on the door frame. I hit the door frame when Jackie told me Rachel was dead and I steadied myself on the door," he said.
He also told them he used to argue with Rachel about keeping the back door locked. "The last time I spoke to Rachel was Sunday night and I was going to bed. Everything was great and there were no problems.
"I would get on very well with Derek Quearney and we have a good working relationship but we were not social friends."
Sgt Aaron Gormley said he then took possession of Mr O'Reilly's clothes - his trousers and pink-purple shirt. "He informed me that his mother would have cleaned his clothes. He had no clean clothes and that during the course of the day, his mother would have cleaned them." He said that on a later occasion, he listened to Rachel O'Reilly's mobile phone messages.
He heard Mr O'Reilly's voice in a message from November 4th saying: "Hi Rach, it's Joe. I'm really sorry for the very very early phone call. This time a month ago you were probably doing what I'm doing now, getting the kids ready for school. But now you're so cold. But the sun is out. It was just a normal day but you had less than two hours to live."
Sgt Gormley also said he studied CCTV footage of outside Viacom, Mr O'Reilly's place of work. He said he identified Mr O'Reilly in the footage at 7.32am and later again at 1.11pm.
Asked by Denis Vaughan Buckley SC, prosecuting, whether he examined Mr O'Reilly's body for scratch marks, he said: "No, I did not."