horror ordeal | 

Woman (86) attacked in her home by evil killer says ‘he just laughed at me’

“I asked him if I could call my sons to say goodbye but he just laughed at me.”

Patrick O’Connell

Today at 07:41

AN 86-year-old woman who was falsely imprisoned in her home and brutally assaulted by killer Richard Kearney has told how he laughed in her face when she asked if she could call her sons before he killed her.

The pensioner, who asked that her name and address not be disclosed, spoke of her horrific ordeal after Kearney was jailed for eight years for carrying out the attack and three others, on two pensioner priests and his former prison chaplain.

Kearney attacked the elderly woman while on temporary release 21 years into his life sentence for the murder of Mary Dillon (72) in 1988.

Ms Dillon’s body was discovered partially naked on November 25 of that year in her garage.

“Like you, he came to my door,” the elderly woman – who survived the attack by Kearney in March of last year – told our reporter.

“He had a fireguard and another parcel with him and he said to me there had been a man in my house the previous week who’d told him to come back.

“I started to laugh and said there was no man in my house and, with that, he shoved me in.

“When we got as far as the kitchen, he threw me onto the floor.

“And he told me several times with his fingers around my neck that he was going to kill me.

“I asked him if I could call my sons to say goodbye but he just laughed at me.”

The woman said she tried to tell Kearney there was no money in the house but offered that he could take anything else he wanted.

“And, the next thing anyway, he took my credit-cards, my keys, my phone.

“He had everything.”

Pointing to a wrist-held panic alarm on her arm, the woman said Kearney then tried to rip it from her arm.

“But while he was trying to pull it off, it went off,” she said.

“And this voice said my name and asked are you alright?”

“I said ‘no, I’m not, I need help … I want help.’

“But Kearney said: ‘Don’t mind her … I’m her brother.’”

The woman said Kearney then went out, locking the hall door, and warned her to follow him.

“I hadn’t a notion of following him … I can assure you,” she said.

Eventually, the woman said, she managed to make it out of the house and to her front gate where her neighbours spotted her and realised something wasn’t right.

“In the meantime, on my door is a bell, and everything he had said and done was recorded.

“And when the police came to me and saw it, they said: ‘We’ll have him before the night’ – and they did.”

The woman was one of three elderly people attacked in their homes by pensioner-killer Kearney on March 15 last year during a spree of violence in west Dublin.

While on temporary release in March last year, Kearney briefly locked his former prison chaplain in her bathroom. Nine days later, he forced his way into the home of an elderly lady and robbed and assaulted her, before attacking and falsely imprisoning two priests in Clondalkin.

Kearney tried to choke one of the priests (74), while the other priest (86) broke his hip during the attack and remains in rehabilitation, the court heard.

Kearney, of Kilcronan Court, Clondalkin, pleaded guilty to 10 counts comprising four counts of false imprisonment, three counts of assault causing harm, two counts of robbery and one threat to kill at various locations in Dublin on March 6 and March 15, 2023.

Sentencing Kearney today, Judge Martin Nolan said that “for reasons known only to himself, he approached these people, entered their property, attacked them, terrified them and falsely imprisoned them”.

The evidence was somewhat similar to the facts of the murder for which Kearney was convicted in 2001, the judge said. He noted the victims were quite elderly and not in a position to resist or defend themselves. He said they were greatly affected by the attacks.

Judge Nolan handed down an eight year prison sentence, which he backdated to last March. Kearney has been back in custody since these offences, when his temporary release was revoked.