ANNE CORCORAN’S killer targeted the widow because she was a woman living alone, the Central Criminal Court has been told.
Oliver Hayes (49), Clancool Terrace, Bandon, Co Cork, told gardaí he had never met his victim, but on Sunday, January 18th, last year, he decided he would rob her at her Co Cork farmhouse.
Mr Hayes sobbed in court as the jury watched his confessions on video during the sixth day of his trial. He has pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Ms Corcoran (60) but not guilty to murdering her between January 19th and 21st last year.
“I tied her hands with washing line cord,” he said in the video statement. Mr Hayes then put Ms Corcoran into the boot of her car.
“I drove around for a while,” he said. She didn’t cry or beg, he added. “What she wanted to do, she said, was to go back to her dogs. I stopped in a few places and asked her again [for money].”
However Ms Corcoran, who had no purse with her, gave him no money.
“So I took her to my house then and I asked her again,” he said. “I told her she’d have to stay here until I got some.” She had managed to climb into the back seat of her car.
“I just pulled her out really, with my hand kind of around her neck. I kept my hand around her mouth so she wouldn’t say anything,” he said, explaining that nobody saw them. “I had to kind of drag her feet.” He had tied her legs during one of the stops.
He asked the widow for the pin for her bank card but at first she wouldn’t tell him.
“So after about half an hour anyway she gave the number,” he said, recalling the pin for the detectives. She had the card in her house and told him where it was.
“So I wanted to knock her out. I hit her with a board and it didn’t take any effect,” he said, explaining that he hit the back of her head four or five times with this stick. “So then I hit her with the other board. It was a bit heavier.”
Having knocked her unconscious with two blows of a kitchen worktop, he drove back to his victim’s house.
The trial continues before Mr Justice Paul Carney.