The Devil in the Red Dress

by Abigail Rieley

  In the email to the Gerry Ryan Show, which is broadcast on RTE 2FM, Collins had accused Howard of having a fondness for kinky sex. Although the allegations were later refuted by P.J. Howard, her accusations had now entered the public domain.

  According to the email, which was read out in court after it was retrieved from a computer, P.J. Howard was into swinging. He took full advantage of the more relaxed atmosphere in Spain and would bring her out to swinging parties on a regular basis, she wrote. She would agree to go but only to look, definitely not to touch, she wrote, adding that he would pester her day in, day out to sleep with strangers while he watched. She said she would rather let him go off and sleep with the transvestite hookers he liked to visit than get involved in any of that kind of thing. She further claimed this was the cause of the most regular arguments they had as a couple.

  ‘I find myself in an unbearable situation, with very few real options and decided to share it with your listeners in the hope that hearing it on the air would clarify things for me and perhaps push me into making the move that frightened me so much.’

  It continued.

  ‘He has a holiday home abroad and likes us to spend as much time there as possible. However, the main attraction for him there is the sex industry—he uses prostitutes and transvestites regularly, but what he really wants is for me to engage in what he describes as “strange sex”. It’s never ending, he will wake me early in the morning or during the night asking me when I’m going to have sex with him or when will I have a threesome with a male escort and himself. He has even told me that he would love it if I would work as a prostitute and that this would really turn him on. I find the idea beyond repulsive. He has insisted on many occasions that we go to Swingers’ Clubs while abroad and has been unbearable to live with afterwards as I do not want to partake in what goes on there. I’ve witnessed things that I sincerely wish I never had to see. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no prude, but I simply do not see myself this way.’

  Gerry Ryan never received the email; it got lost in the mountain of correspondence his show received. Even though she tried to get the story aired a second time with a pitch entitled ‘Sleeping with the enemy,’ it was never read out on air. Ironically when the details of Collins’s grievances finally did reach an audience, it was without her carefully placed anonymity intact.

  She had always maintained that while she admitted writing the letter in a fit of pique against Howard one evening while she was in Spain, she had never actually hit send. The fact that her computer had received an automated response from the RTE server was something that was not explained to her satisfaction, so now Ryan himself had been summoned to court to explain what had happened. He ended up giving his evidence before the Prosecution had quite finished presenting their case.

  It was explained to the court that he and his producer, Siobhán Hough, were about to catch a flight out of the country and would simply not be available to take the stand in a more conventional slot. Standing to swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, he looked every inch the successful broadcaster in a dark pin striped suit, his hair slicked back severely. The court went quiet as he sat down to give his evidence. It was well known that the trial had been discussed on his show and he had commented that he had never seen the letter in question. Michael Bowman, a barrister on Collins’s defence team, had pointed out that this proved there was no evidence that the letter had ever been sent, backing up his client’s version of events. There was a lot riding on this witness.

  The evidence, as it was quickly run through, turned out to be something of an anticlimax. The show received about two thousand emails a month, Ryan said, only a fraction of them got to air. His production team went through all the emails and filtered the interesting ones out before giving them to him to read over. To the best of his knowledge, he had never received a letter giving the details Collins had written.

  Hough took the stand next. She couldn’t remember the letter either or the one that had been titled ‘Sleeping with the enemy’ the contents of which had disappeared without trace since being written. And that was it. Ryan left the courtroom followed by a gaggle of reporters hoping for a few extra words to pad out their copy. None was forthcoming and Ryan and his producer exited stage left to catch their plane.

  The defence soon got underway properly. Collins’s friends and family took the stand to paint her as a victim in the whole sordid affair. Her elder sisters appeared one after the other to insist that they had never stayed with Collins at Ballybeg House in 2006. Their evidence was over quickly and with a nod to their sister they were gone.

  Now the waiting was almost over. While neither of the two accused were under any obligation whatsoever to take the stand themselves, it was hoped by the press that one or both of them would. Collins herself had been musing over lunch whether or not she should take the stand. Although not quite as chatty as her co-defendant, she had struck up conversations with some of the press. Anxious about her public image she asked this author, ‘Should I give evidence?’ The honest answer, the only one that wouldn’t have been a bare faced lie was, ‘We all want you to.’

  She paused in the stairwell leading to the toilets, just off the Round Hall.

  ‘They’ve been telling me I should but I wasn’t sure. I think everyone would like to know what really happened though. Don’t you?’

  ‘Of course.’

  There was only the briefest of pauses after the last of the witnesses left the stand before Collins stood up and made her way towards the witness box. There was an almost imperceptible intake of breath and those in the back seats leaned forward so as not to miss a word. Collins paid no attention. This was her moment and she was making the most of it. She sat down, her frame tiny against the dark wood of the judge’s bench, and smiled at the jury. O’Higgins stood up and led her through an easy protestation of her innocence. It was only when he sat down and the Prosecution’s barrister stood up that matters got interesting.

  The barrister, Una Ní Raifeartaigh, was chosen to handle the cross examination for strategic reasons. It proved to be a prudent move as she had deftly navigated through the majority of the technical evidence and knew how to handle Collins. She was more than a match for Collins’s charms and within moments, as the line was drawn in the sand between them, Collins’s smile faltered for the first time. The first matter to be dealt with was the evidence from John Keating. Ní Raifeartaigh immediately raised 16 August with Collins.

  Would Collins’s mother remember her arriving at her house with a builder, the barrister asked.

  Collins nodded emphatically.

  ‘Yes, of course!’

  But her mother was an elderly woman, after all. Collins smiled disarmingly.

  ‘She wouldn’t remember the date.’

  When Ní Raifeartaigh probed Collins about her own recollection, she declared it to be rock solid.

  ‘I have been thinking back for quite a long time,’ Collins said.

  The barrister reminded Collins that she only got the evidence about the 16 August emails in May, just before the trial started. It had taken the gardaí quite some time to decode what they found on the numerous hard drives. When Ní Raifeartaigh asked if Collins suddenly remembered that morning with Keating, two years later, she was met with a short ‘Yes.’

  A change in tack, the subject moved to the rest of Collins’s alibi.

  Ní Raifeartaigh asked her if she had told her partner that she was being blackmailed. Collins smiled wryly. Of course she hadn’t, not considering what the blackmail had been about. Ní Raifeartaigh pushed further, asking if she had told him about Maria Marconi at all. Collins shook her head. She said that she had wanted to find out if she could write first, and then surprise Howard with the news when she had something to show him. She retorted that it wasn’t unusual not to tell him something like that.

  ‘People keep things to themselves and don’t tell their partners all the time,’ said Collins.

  Ní Raifear
taigh put it to Collins that she probably needed the time to get her story straight. She had been well practised by the time she started telling people about Marconi, the barrister remarked.

  For the first time, irritation showed in Collins. ‘It wasn’t difficult to tell them what happened. It’s easy to tell a story when you know what you have done.’

  So these seventy phone calls between her phone and Essam Eid’s phone, was she claiming she had made 70 calls to a blackmailer? asked Ní Raifeartaigh.

  Collins shook her head again. No, some of them were to Maria Marconi.

  But they’re all to the same numbers, Ní Raifeartaigh countered.

  The numbers were withheld. It was difficult to tell, said Collins.

  The barrister asked her about the emails.

  Collins responded that it was easy; she wasn’t Lying Eyes.

  When Ní Raifeartaigh highlighted that Lying Eyes kept signing herself Sharon and she used Collins’s mother’s maiden name when she applied for a job with hitmanforhire.net, Collins kept her answers simple.

  ‘That wasn’t me. I don’t have any firearms experience.’

  ‘I’m glad you pointed that out,’ retorted the barrister.

  Collins insisted she wasn’t Lying Eyes. ‘I suppose you could say that it’s your job to bring in a guilty verdict but I am not Lying Eyes.’

  But the name is so appropriate.

  ‘Is it?’ Collins smiled politely. ‘I wouldn’t know.’

  ‘Didn’t you listen to any music in the 70s?’

  Collins nodded. She knew the song but only after a friend of hers had phoned her and sang her the chorus. Ní Raifeartaigh was unimpressed.

  ‘Do you know it’s about a young beautiful woman moving in with an older man and cheating on him?’

  ‘I just heard the first verse,’ retorted Collins.

  It was a very popular song in its day. You must know it. Ní Raifeartaigh pointed out they were both of an age and should share the same popular culture.

  ‘Robert is into old music. I am actually into Justin Timberlake.’

  Collins laughed and fluttered her eyelashes toward the jury. She had not written those emails.

  But they had so much detail in them; detail that only Collins could know, the barrister remarked.

  Collins stood firm and said she hadn’t written them.

  Ní Raifeartaigh didn’t let up. She put it to Collins that she had used the name Bernie Lyons to sign up for the Lying Eyes address.

  Collins said she hadn’t.

  The barrister wasn’t put out by Collins’s continued denials, and put it to her that she had identified herself as the ‘devil in the red dress’ to the man she was hiring to kill her partner and his sons.

  She had done no such thing. She would never call herself a devil. She was a religious woman, Collins added. ‘I just find it amazing that somebody would identify themselves like that to a would-be assassin.’

  She smiled at the jury again, saying that she was totally innocent. She said she had made all this clear to the gardaí when they had questioned her but they hadn’t taken everything down.

  Ní Raifeartaigh acknowledged that Collins was not happy with the interviews.

  Collins nodded, all serious. The accused had a long list of points she had wanted her defence to bring up about them but, and she turned a 100 watt smile back towards the jury, ‘I think there are people who want to get away so for the sake of finishing up.’

  The barrister was not impressed by this grandstanding. The jury would have the right to request the videos if they wanted them once they had begun their deliberations and it was up to them to decide if the differences mattered. But right now it was the emails from Lying Eyes that interested the prosecutor.

  Collins was insistent. She wasn’t Lying Eyes. She was a victim, she had been blackmailed. She had never made any secret about the €15,000 payment to Teresa Engle.

  ‘I think the position I find myself in is ludicrous,’ Collins declared.

  ‘It’s of your own making, Ms Collins.’

  ‘I wouldn’t agree with that.’

  She denied giving the tracking number to anyone apart from the blackmailer.

  The barrister asked how Eid got hold of it.

  Someone else might have had it, Collins told her and said that she certainly hadn’t used the Iridium laptop to check the tracking number herself.

  But someone went onto the FedEx page with that tracking number at 8.10 a.m. on 16 August. Ní Raifeartaigh asked Collins if she noticed anyone using her computer at home when she went down to make her coffee?

  When the barrister asked Collins to look at the evidence, Ní Raifeartaigh pointed out that it would have had to be someone with a particularly Machiavellian mind to set her up. They would have had to sneak around her house to use the computer and when they were framing her as a femme fatale, they would have had to be so precise as to do internet searches for diet pills and flights to Malaga while they were looking for a hitman. Whoever had set her up must have known her very well, the barrister added.

  Piece by piece, the internet evidence was brought out and pored over. If it hadn’t been Collins, who did she suggest it was, Ní Raifeartaigh asked her. The barrister pointed out that there were a limited number of people who had access to all the computers that the emails had been sent from. There was Collins; the others would all appear to be the Howards but they were the very people the plot had sought to kill. She asked who Collins would suggest had written the emails if it wasn’t her?

  Collins appeared to lose her composure for the first time in the trial.

  ‘I have been brought down to the garda station. I have been questioned at length. I have been charged with crimes I most certainly did not commit. I have been put into prison; you can’t imagine the effect that has had on my life. I am not going to accuse anybody of anything when I don’t know,’ she said.

  The accused said that the trial had had a major impact on her family, and she was serious as she agreed that her sisters had used the Irish versions of their names to give evidence. She said it was a hugely embarrassing situation for everyone.

  ‘It has destroyed my life and my children’s lives.’

  Ní Raifeartaigh dragged the attention away from Collins to the emails’ proposed victims, P.J. Howard and his two sons. The situation was surely more humiliating for Howard.

  ‘You were a couple for how long? Eight years?’

  ‘It’s ten years now.’

  For the first time Collins gave a definite indication to the question that had been buzzing around the courtroom since P.J. Howard had kissed her as he left, and would continue to buzz long after the trial was over. In her eyes anyway, they were still an item. Collins’s eyes widened as she spoke of his unwavering support.

  ‘I know that if I was shown the amount of evidence P.J. has been shown of someone trying to kill my children I wouldn’t let my heart get in my way.’

  Then she said she was angry about the Gerry Ryan email being read out in court. Even though P.J. Howard hadn’t been in court that day, he had been in the country, he had read the papers and seen the headlines. Ní Raifeartaigh nodded.

  ‘He was a man with a secret.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You let that secret out of the bag.’

  Collins was indignant. This was one mess that was not down to her.

  ‘I didn’t let the secret out of the bag. If that letter had been aired on the Gerry Ryan Show it would have been done as an anonymous letter,’ said Collins.

  Collins then accepted that the email had been sent, she hadn’t realised it had but if there had been email confirmation …

  ‘Nevertheless though it was an anonymous and private matter,’ she retorted and went on to say that the letter should never have been read out in court. On top of that, she said the copy that the gardaí had recovered was incomplete. If they could have seen the whole letter they would have seen how many nice things she had written about P.J. Howard as well. />
  The prosecutor asked if she could assume from Collins’s remarks that the contents were true.

  ‘It certainly was a thing that P.J. and I had discussed … It was part of what we had discussed,’ Collins responded.

  ‘Was it true?’

  ‘Some of it was—various bits but a lot of that letter wasn’t retrieved.’

  It didn’t give a full picture, Collins complained.

  Ní Raifeartaigh asked her if she stood by the things she had written about Howard.

  ‘I don’t think I need to explain the private matters that go on between two people,’ Collins responded.

  Ní Raifeartaigh wasn’t about to give up any time soon. She pointed out the obvious. The way the allegations had also turned up in the emails between ‘Lying Eyes’ and ‘Tony Luciano’, almost as if they were a motive. Collins shook her head vigorously.

  ‘It’s absolutely not a motive to kill three people.’

  But it was a motive for blackmail, argued the prosecutor, even though the sky hadn’t fallen since the matter had been aired in court. She asked if they were true. Had he asked Collins to sleep with other men?

  ‘It was discussed. I’m not sure how serious he was about it,’ said Collins.

  ‘He made the suggestion to you?’

  ‘It was discussed.’

  And the transvestites?

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How did you feel?’

  ‘I most certainly didn’t like it … as I’ve said, after that it was no longer an issue. Well it wasn’t mentioned again.’

  Ní Raifeartaigh was not convinced. It just went away?

  Collins nodded, smiling again.

  She explained that there had been rows about certain things and she had been very angry at the time. That’s when she had written everything down. Including the email she had sent to Marconi that she had subsequently been blackmailed with. But it hadn’t been discussed after that row. It might have been because they were travelling but it was certainly never discussed. She said that she didn’t want to discuss the matter now.