BACKGROUND:WITH A plot straight from the pages of bad crime fiction, the Sharon Collins case was aired once again yesterday as she and her co-accused went to the Court of Criminal Appeal to challenge their convictions and sentences.
Collins attended yesterday’s hearing. Dressed in a black trouser suit with a white blouse and black high-heel boots, she appeared tanned. Her hair, tied back, seemed longer than it was during her trial and there was a hint of highlights.
She looked slightly nervous as she closely followed the legal arguments designed to get her out of jail.
The original 32-day trial gripped the country in 2008, but it was only when her barristers took to their feet yesterday to recap the evidence that one was reminded of the sheer absurdity of it all.
If the charge that she solicited a man to murder her partner, Co Clare millionaire businessman PJ Howard, and his two sons, Robert and Niall, wasn’t so serious this case could easily pass for an American soap opera.
PJ Howard stood by Collins during her original trial, even urging the judge not to jail her, but he was absent yesterday.
One of her two sons did attend.
Collins was convicted largely on the basis of e-mails sent from her lyingeyes98 e-mail account, which she used to hire a hit man, via hitmanforhire.com
The would-be killer was Essam Eid (54), an Egyptian poker dealer based in Las Vegas. Clearly not one of the finest criminal brains gardaí have ever encountered, he communicated with Collins via his e-mail address, hire_hitman@ yahoo.com
He also passed himself off on the internet as Tony Luciano; a fictitious monicker he most likely dreamed up after gorging on Godfather movies. You literally couldn’t make it up.
The trial in 2008 was told Collins wanted to marry Howard but when he refused, she set about plotting to murder him and his sons so she could inherit Howard’s considerable fortune.
She even got a fake marriage licence from Mexico via (you’ve guessed it) a website – proxymarriages.com
This was used to acquire a passport under the name Sharon Howard, to strengthen her claim to Howard’s fortune after his murder.
When Eid arrived in Ireland in 2006, he went to Robert Howard from whom he tried to extort €100,000 to effectively buy out the triple murder contract taken out by Collins. Before leaving the US for Ireland, Eid had sourced the deadly poison Ricin, which was to be used in the murders.
When the plot was rumbled and Eid was arrested in Ireland, gardaí found a contact lens case in his prison cell in Limerick contaminated with Ricin.
For her part, Collins claimed she was the victim in this sorry saga.
The appeal is expected to conclude today.
