A Dublin woman stabbed her husband to death after a violent and drunken attack, a murder trial heard yesterday.
A jury in the Central Criminal Court was told that mother of two Mrs Caroline Comerford stabbed her husband repeatedly with a steak knife after a violent row.
Mrs Comerford (37), of Tarahill Crescent, Rathfarnham, Dublin, pleaded not guilty to murdering her husband, Mr Peter Comerford (39), in their home at Carrickmount Drive, Rathfarnham, on August 9th, 1998.
Opening the case for the prosecution, Mr Kenneth Mills SC told the jury the stabbing happened after a drunken row between the couple which resulted in Mr Comerford allegedly violently assaulting his wife. Mrs Comerford "went to the kitchen, chose a knife and went upstairs" where Mr Comerford resumed his attack, Mr Mills said.
Mrs Comerford then stabbed her husband twice in the legs and once in the back, thereby severing an artery and causing severe loss of blood and shock, from which he died, the State alleges. Afterwards, Mrs Comerford collapsed at the top of the stairs and later put a duvet around her husband while he lay dying.
Mr Comerford had a "very heavy drinking problem and had been on drugs and had been on a methadone programme at the time of his death," the court heard. The Comerford marriage had been "punctuated with numerous episodes of violence," Mr Mills conceded.
A sister of the accused, Ms Deborah McDonald (25), told the court she arrived at the Comerford home shortly after Mr Comerford had been stabbed. When Ms McDonald entered the house her sister looked "in shock" and was saying: "I think I'm after stabbing him, I don't know. I think I'm after killing him," in an agitated fashion, she said.
Ms McDonald's then boyfriend checked Mr Comerford for a pulse but got no signs of life, she said. "I asked her how long Peter was there and she said roughly two hours." Ms McDonald told the court that when she asked her sister what had happened, she had told her that "Peter flung a shoe at her head and they were fighting . . . (but that) she didn't mean to stab him, just meant to frighten him with the knife."
Ms McDonald said there was no telephone in the house and Mrs Comerford had been "afraid to leave him" after he had been stabbed and so was unable to get help.
In a statement made to gardai, the accused allegedly said her husband had woken from a drunken sleep "in the horrors". Reading from a statement, Garda Kieran Prior told the court Mrs Comerford told gardai: "He just went mad when he woke and kept hitting me. I have lumps on the back of my head."
In a later statement, i, Mrs Comerford said "when I stabbed Peter I was just defending myself. I didn't want to kill him."
A prosecution witness, Mr Noel Fitzpatrick, told the court that Mr and Mrs Comerford "got on fine" when Mr Comerford was sober "but he got nasty when he'd drink on him."
The trial before Mr Jusice O'Donovan and a jury of seven women and five men continues today.