Murder accused was banging on widow's door the day she was killed, court told
A witness has told the trial of a man accused of murdering a widow in Kilkenny that she saw him banging on her door the day she was killed.
John Joseph Malone of Newpark in Kilkenny is accused of strangling Anne Nancy Smyth before setting her home on fire in September 1987.
Thirty years ago, Geraldine Brennan lived three doors down from Nancy Smyth on Wolfe Tone Street in Kilkenny city.
Shortly after midnight on Sept 11, 1987, she heard a male voice screaming out on the street. She said she could hear someone shouting: “Let me into the f**king house ... I just want to talk to you” and “I’ll f**king get you.”
When she went outside to investigate, she said she saw John Joe Malone banging on Mrs Smyth’s door and windows.
She said he seemed “angry and agitated”.
She told the jury she went back to bed and assumed he had gone home when things went quiet.
It is the prosecution’s case that Mr Malone somehow gained entry to the house and that he beat 69-year-old Nancy Smyth before strangling her and setting her house on fire.
He denies the charge.
