“TAKE HER down,” Mr Justice Hart instructed the two prison guards after Karen Walsh was convicted of the murder by physical and sexual assault of 81-year-old Maire Rankin on Christmas morning three years ago.
Throughout the 10-day trial the Galway-born, Dublin-based pharmacist was calm and composed and remained so again yesterday. But as she was led from the dock she turned to the judge to say “I am totally innocent”.
It took the jury of seven women and five men just one hour and 52 minutes to unanimously decide otherwise. When the foreman announced the “guilty” verdict some of Mrs Rankin’s eight children started crying in the public gallery.
Walsh’s husband, Richard Durkin, an accountant, wasn’t in the public gallery as it had been locked because it was already full. He missed the declaration of the verdict and his wife’s reaction; the jury’s decision was conveyed to him in the landing outside court No 13.
The extended Rankin family who turned out in solidarity with the close relatives of the victim contrasted with the lonely presence of Mr Durkin supporting his wife.
It told a personal story for Karen Walsh (45) that was as pathetic as the overall story of the trial was harrowing and – as was noted a number of times in court – “bizarre” and brutal.
Mrs Rankin’s daughter Emily captured the vicious nature of the murder with the comment outside the court that her mother “was savagely and persistently beaten with a crucifix, clumps of hair were violently pulled out by the roots, she was left with head injuries and broken ribs before being subjected to the ultimate defilement of her body”.
That encapsulated how Walsh consumed most of a large bottle of vodka in Mrs Rankin’s bedroom in her Newry home early on Christmas morning 2008, and then assaulted her, using as a weapon a crucifix that made the imprint of the crown of thorns on Mrs Rankin’s chin.
Walsh was sentenced to life imprisonment with the minimum term she will serve to be announced in the coming weeks by Mr Justice Hart.
