Rachel O'Reilly

The woman who was bludgeoned to death by her husband

For our second case this week, we’re taking a break from the southern states of the US and heading all the way to Naul, a small village on the northeastern edge of Dublin in Ireland.  Naul is beautiful (as you might expect) with its rolling hills and fields of rapeseed, imagine it is a peaceful place where you’d have lovely country walks and a pint at the local pub. 

And this is where we’ll meet Rachel O’ Reilly – a 30-year-old mother of two small boys married to her husband Joe O’Reilly.  A real live wire of a woman, a beautiful person inside and out and with not a mean bone in her body. She was a woman with a huge and caring heart.  An adventurous woman described as being a ‘ray on sunshine’ – she’d even achieved a softball world record. 

Rachel and Joe

Rachel was 17 when she met Joe who was two years older than her. He had been persistent in his attempts to court Rachel and eventually Rachel relented.  Joe had proposed on the Eiffel Tower.  They had been married for 13 years and had two young sons of two and four.  In 2003, they had moved to Naul which was a perfect place to raise children.  Although Rachel’s mum had some concerns about her daughter moving there – thinking she might be lonely as Joe was away a lot of the time with work - Rachel soon made friends and had a BBQ when she moved there to meet her neighbours. 

Problems in the Marriage

Though Rachel was quite a private person when it came to her personal life, those closest to her could sense that there were some issues within their marriage.  Joe was quite an absent father, leaving early and coming home late, Rachel did most of the parenting.

The Murder

On Monday morning October 4^th, 2004, Rachel took her two small boys to creche and school as she did every morning.  Throughout the morning, Joe had been sending Rachel messages and leaving her voicemails, but she did not respond.  Later he received a call from the daycare to say that Rachel had not picked up their son.  In a panic, Joe had called Rachel’s mother to say that Rachel had not picked up the boys.  Rose Callaly agreed that she would go over to their house to check on Rachel while Joe went to pick up the boys – by now family members had been calling Rachel on both the house phone and her mobile but to no avail. 

Rose Callaly made her way to Lambay View where Rachel and Joe lived.  She heaved a sigh of relief as she saw Rachel’s car parked outside.  But her relief was short-lived.  The patio door was open, and the house was silent.  Rose had a feeling that something was seriously wrong.   As she walked through the house, items were scattered on the floor, their videos were left in a pile and the house appeared to have been ransacked.  Rose made her way to the bedroom. 

And there she was greeted by every mother’s worst nightmare:  Her daughter lying dead in a pool of her own blood.   It was too awful to comprehend – Rose’s beautiful daughter had been bludgeoned to death.  The scene she was confronted with was horrifying – there was blood everywhere and her hair was matted, you could even see down to her skull.  Rose let out a scream. 

Rose managed to call the police who quickly arrived on scene.  Joe arrived shortly afterwards at 2.30pm and upon walking into the bedroom said, ‘Jesus Rachel what did you do?’  He proceeded to tell the police that he had touched Rachel’s body when he saw her and moved a box out of the way and that he hoped that this would not hinder their investigation. 

To all intents and purposes, this appeared to be a robbery that had gone wrong.  Only thing was that money that had been in the house had not been taken.  The lead investigator on the case also noted the savagery of the beating (all the police on scene were shocked by the brutality of the killing).  This kind of violence was severe, it required ferocious force and a level of coldness.  The police felt strongly that this kind of viciousness showed hatred and was personal.  It was a crime that couldn’t have been carried out by a total stranger. 

Police Search

The police got to work in conducting door to door searches and made a probe of the area.  The community was shocked by the crime and were keen to help in any way that they could. 

Half a mile from Rachel’s home, a camera and jewellery were found dumped (items that were missing from the family home).  The police though were unable to find the murder weapon.

Police Investigation

As part of the investigative process, Joe was brought in for questioning.  He explained that he had left for work early that morning at 5.30am to head to the gym and then onwards to work.  At 8.07am, CCTV footage showed Joe leaving his workplace and he said that he had been on his way to a bus depot as part of his job was to check the advertisements on buses.  The police asked Joe if he knew of anyone who would want to harm Rachel or if she was having an affair. They found his reply strange as he replied that ‘neither of us was having an affair.’ They went on to question Joe as to whether he'd been unfaithful.  Eventually he admitted that he had had a brief affair but that it was only a fling and that it was over now.  He added that he and Rachel had had an argument the night before the murder, as she had asked him if he was having an affair. 

After this revelation, the police brought in Nikki Pelley who Joe had been seeing.  Nikki confirmed that it was only a brief fling. 

Autopsy results showed that Rachel had been bludgeoned to death with a heavy object – something like a dumbbell – which Joe had said was missing from their home.  Rachel’s skull had been fractured in two places and she had multiple lacerations on her shoulders, neck and face.  She had defensive wounds on her arms which confirmed what Rachel’s father, Jim, had thought.  She had put up a fight.  The autopsy showed that Rachel had been struck 6-9 times and would have had difficulty breathing as there would have been blood in her airways. 

In the meantime, Rachel’s parents had to go through the ordeal of arranging her burial.  When left alone for a moment of quiet with Rachel and the undertaker, Joe said callously ‘you can put the lid on it now’.  Rachel’s parents felt that Joe’s behaviour was becoming increasingly strange.  He’d written on a card left with flowers for Rachel at the funeral ‘see you later’.  After a thorough search of the house, police allowed Joe to resume living there.  Joe invited Rachel’s parents to the house and said that they would find some peace by visiting.  To Jim’s horror, Joe led them to the bedroom which had not been cleaned.  There was blood everywhere, on the walls, floor and ceiling and naturally Jim felt sick to his stomach.  Joe then went on to do a full reenactment of how he thought the murder took place in front of Rachel’s parents.

And if this wasn’t enough, in an interview with a journalist he had asked her if she wanted to see the bedroom where everything happened and although the journalist wasn’t squeamish, she was sickened by this.  Joe never mentioned his wife or how he missed her once in this interview. 

Police seized Joe’s laptop and searched his office.  There had been a series of emails that had been deleted but police experts were able to recover them.  They found a string of messages where Joe was describing in great vulgarity his deep hatred for his wife to his sister. He’d said that Rachel repulsed him.  Of course, this came as a great shock to Rachel’s family.  They’d figured that he had some odd behaviours; he was a loner and could be a bit strange – breaking off from the adults at family gatherings - but they had no idea that he felt this way about Rachel. 

Furthermore, Joe’s behaviour backstage at The Late Late Show where he appeared with Rachel’s parents was extremely off.  While Rose and Jim could barely touch a cup of tea, Joe dug into the refreshments and food as if he hadn’t a care in the world.  And after this display of forced concern, he went off to visit Nikki Pelley.  As it turned out, this had very much not been a ‘fling’.  He had met Nikki at work and the two had begun a long-term affair.  When he had told Rachel that he had to go away for work, he was in fact spending time with Nikki. 

Two weeks after the murder, both Nikki and Joe’s colleague were arrested.  The colleague of Joe’s had confirmed that on the morning of Rachel’s murder, Joe was due to meet him at the bus depot.  When he arrived at the depot, he called Joe to find out where he was.  Joe said he was in another area of the depot.  Nikki finally admitted to police that the relationship with Joe was far more serious than she had first said, and that Joe had asked her to play the relationship down.  The two were both released without charge.  The following day, Joe was taken into custody, but he refused to answer any questions.

As you might expect at this point, detectives were extremely suspicious of Joe.  They had CCTV footage of a car that was Joe’s make and model but unfortunately could not make out the number plate.  Two days later, Joe was released without charge. 

Police then applied to have Rachel’s body exhumed as they wanted to scrutinise a letter that Joe had thrown into Rachel’s coffin. 

On the 8^th of March 2005, police exhumed Rachel’s body.  Within the letter was the phrase ‘Please forgive me’.  Ambiguous sure, but not enough to arrest him. 

Building a Case

By December 2005, the police were in the depths of trying to build a strong case against Joe.  And by this point, Rachel’s family were also convinced that he was guilty.  He continued to act in such a strange and detached way and was so powerful in his reenactment of the murder. 

The police had a breakthrough then with searching through Joe’s phone records.  They were able to bring an engineer across from France who could show exactly where Joe’s phone made contact with the phone masts and from there plot a route of where he had been that fateful morning.  Joe had sent an email to a colleague saying that his mobile phone would be out of service for much of the morning and despite telling his colleague that he was on the other side of the depot, phone records showed that Joe was actually heading home.  During the morning, Joe received a call and text message which ‘pinged’ off the mast nearest to his house.  His car was also seen passing the quarry where the phone masts were situated.  Further analysis of his phone records showed that Joe’s phone had pinged off the home mast when the murder had taken place.  At last, this was enough for police to take him into custody and in October 2006, two years after Rachel’s murder, Joe was arrested.

Court Case

On June 25^th, 2007, the trial started, and Joe O’Reilly entered a plea of ‘not guilty’.  As to be expected, there was a large amount of press and interest in the case.  Rachel’s family had not seen Joe in a while and described it as a painful experience to see him again.  He seemed so arrogant and detached. 

The prosecution had built up a robust case to put before the court.  Many details were put forward to the jury including how Rachel had told a friend of an argument they’d had before she was murdered where she had told Joe that his behaviour had to change, or he would have to leave.  There was an account of Nikki Pelley’s where Joe had said to her that he could kill Rachel and get away with it. He had also said in passing to someone that the murder weapon ‘was in the water’.  With evidence of the emails that were exchanged between Joe and his sister, the phone analysis evidence, his affair with Nikki Pelley and his warped behaviour following the murder, the writing was on the wall.

It was clear, the prosecution said, that Joe had planned to start a life with Nikki.  A life which didn’t include Rachel.  As far as he was concerned, he wouldn’t be able to get full custody of his boys and start his life as he wanted to, so he killed his wife of 13 years.  The prosecution explained that they believed that Joe had been lying in wait in their bedroom as Rachel arrived home from dropping off their children and had launched a vicious and brutal attack on her.  The fact that he could reenact the murder in such detail was also so telling.  He had staged the murder scene to look like a robbery gone wrong while he had bludgeoned his wife with a dumbbell.

During the trial, he showed no emotion and laughed and joked.

On the 21^st of July 2007, Joe O’Reilly was found guilty of murder and given a life sentence. 

Appeals and Moving Forward

Joe O’Reilly has tried to appeal his conviction on several occasions but thankfully these requests have been denied.  He is currently serving his life sentence at the tough Midlands Prison in Portlaoise. 

Jim sadly died earlier this year. A huge amount of pressure was put on him and Rose through the years as they campaigned to ensure that Joe did not receive parole. 

Case Analysis

When Jim saw Joe reenacting the crime for them all those years ago, he knew in his heart of hearts that what he was watching was the workings of a psychopath.  He seemed to enjoy watching the horror that spread across Rose and Jim’s faces. 

This was a calculated and planned murder. And we see Joe, a man who wanted to present himself as the perfect husband to the world.  So desperate to control the narrative wherever he could.  The man whose whole life was a lie. 

We see such a coldness in Joe, not only in the awful act of killing but in the way he spoke of Rachel, like she meant nothing.  A man who vehemently denied that he was having an affair to his wife, over and over, when this is exactly what he was doing. 

There is such coldness too in the way that he allowed Rose to find Rachel’s body, knowing exactly the scene that she would be coming across. There is such a level of arrogance, with no remorse and never a confession. 

Rachel’s memory

Rachel O’Reilly was a vibrant young woman. She was extremely close to her family and always made time to spend with her siblings.  She absolutely loved being a mother and it’s so tragic that she couldn’t witness her boys growing up. 

Today we hold space for Rachel in our thoughts. 

Sources:

Sunday World

The Sun

Irish Independent

Truly Criminal

Image credit:  Sunday World