Two Cork men robbed, then strangled a 50-year-old neighbour with a piece of electrical cable before making a "crude" attempt to make it look like suicide, a court heard yesterday.
Mr Alex Owens SC, prosecuting, told a murder trial jury at the Central Criminal Court that Mr Thomas Penkert (21) and Mr Brian Walsh (22) murdered Ms Nora Kiely in her flat after robbing her on July 15th, 2002.
"The evidence will be effectively that on that date at about 9.30 or 9.40 p.m. they broke into Nora Kiely's bedsit for the purpose of robbery and during the course of that Nora Kiely was strangled," he told the jury.
"The accused came in, Nora Kiely was strangled, this particular flex was used and she was killed.
"When the gardaí arrived at about midnight she was lying on the bed naked from the waist down and she was dead.
"A crude attempt was made to effectively pretend in some way that she committed suicide by placing the knife in her hand."
The two accused shared a flat in the same apartment building as Ms Kiely in Leitrim Street, near the centre of Cork. Both have pleaded not guilty to Ms Kiely's murder but admit to robbing her of less than €20 in cash and two items of jewellery.
The two men denied a charge that they attempted to enter another flat in the building with intent to inflict grievous bodily harm on another neighbour, Ms Tatton, on July 15th, 2002.
Mr John Kennedy told the court he knocked on Ms Kiely's window at about 9.40 p.m. on the 15th. He noticed her light was switched off soon after he knocked. Mr Penkert came to the door shortly after and let him in.