When 30-year-old Rachel O’Reilly didn’t pick up her son from nursery, no one could have imagined the horrors that were about to unfold…
Rachel O’Reilly was born on October 10, 1973, in Dublin, Ireland. She was adopted by Jim and Rose Callaly and had a happy upbringing in a loving family.
When she was 14, the family moved to Australia but only stayed for a year before moving back to Ireland because they missed it so much.
When Rachel was 17, she got a part-time job in a shop where she met 19-year-old Joe O’Reilly. They really hit it off and started dating soon after. Joe proposed at the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris in 1994.
In 1997, Rachel and Joe got married. They had their honeymoon in Kenya. The couple spent the next few years focussing on their work. Rachel worked for solicitors, and Joe for a software company.
Their first child, Luke, was born in March 2000, and the next year they welcomed their son Adam. The family moved to Naul and soon settled in. Rachel started a remote sales job. Joe had to travel for work quite often, but Rachel took it in her stride, working at looking after the children.
There were rumours that Joe was having an affair. Both Joe and Rachel confided in friends that they didn’t have an affectionate marriage. A friend of Rachel’s knew someone who worked at the same company as Joe and they said that Joe never actually had to travel overnight for work, so what had he been doing when Rachel thought he was away working?
Things came to a head on Sunday 3rd October 2003, when Rachel heard one of her sons talking about ‘Daddy’s friend, Nikki.’ Rachel was furious that her children might know about a mistress. Joe slept in the spare room that night after he and Rachel had a heated argument.
At 5:30 am the next morning, Joe left to go to the gym and then to work. Rachel was supposed to pick up their son from school but at 1 pm Joe got a call from the school saying that Rachel hadn’t shown up. Joe tried calling her but got no answer. He then called friends and family to see if they had heard anything from her or knew where she could be.
Rachel’s mother, Rose, lived nearby so went to the house to see if Rachel was there. In the bedroom of the house, she found her daughter dead.
Joe arrived at the house shortly after and rushed inside to the scene of his wife’s body.
The house was in disarray like it had been ransacked. There was broken glass and overturned furniture as if there had been a break-in. Rachel’s body was found with her keys in her hand as if she had been attacked when she got back from dropping the kids off at school.
Detective Pat Marry said:
“It’s a sight I will never forget, my god, she was pulverised. Her hair was matted in blood, over her ear there was, you could see down to her skull, it was about 5 inches long. You could see there was severe force used to inflict that, so the poor woman had no chance whatsoever, absolutely none. It was savage, cold, just unbelievable.”
There was a large amount of money in Rachel’s handbag that hadn’t been taken, and although jewellery and a camcorder had been stolen from the O’Reilly’s home, police recovered them from the surrounding area where they had been dumped.
The autopsy showed that Rachel’s cause of death was blunt force trauma. She suffered multiple blows to the head. Her body showed signs of a struggle. She had defensive wounds on her hands and arms. Rachel had fought hard for her life.
Joe told investigators that a dumbbell was missing from the house. It was a possible murder weapon and although they searched the area and asked locals to keep a lookout, police didn’t recover it.
Rachel’s murder sent shockwaves through the village. It was frightening for residents to know that there was such a violent killer out there.
Rachel’s family held a funeral for her and they all wrote letters and placed them in her coffin. Joe put his letter in last, with family and friends giving him a private final moment with his wife.
Joe O’Reilly was one of the first people questioned in the investigation, having been married to Rachel for 13 years. He was at work at the time of the murder. Having left home at 5:30 am to go to the gym with friends, he then went to work in Dublin City. At 8 am he went to a bus depot in Broadstone with colleagues and returned to the office at midday.
In the weeks after Rachel’s death, Joe began acting strangely. He invited Rachel’s parents, Rose and Jim, to the house as he thought they might be comforted by feeling Rachel’s presence. When they got there, however, Joe showed them the crime scene and reenacted how he thought the murder happened. He even pointed out blood spatter on the walls. He said that the killer must have returned to “finish her off” when he heard “gurgling”. Rachel’s father Jim had to leave because it made him physically sick. Joe pulled the same stunt every time someone came over, including friends and even reporters. He certainly didn’t seem like a grieving husband.
Investigators found out Joe had been having multiple affairs during his marriage to Rachel. One affair in particular turned into something more serious. For six months, he had been seeing a colleague, Nikki Pelley. He even started staying with her two nights out of the week, telling Rachel that he was just staying at the office after working late so as not to disturb her and the children.
Investigators went through Joe’s emails and soon discovered just how much he hated his wife. In emails to his lover and to his sister, he said: “Me + Rachel + marriage = over.” He even went as far as admitting that Rachel repulsed him. He also fixated on the thought of Rachel getting custody of their children if they divorced. He said he didn’t want to be a “weekend parent”. The emails also pointed to the fact that he had called social services on his wife with false accusations about how she looked after the kids.
Joe’s strange behaviour after Rachel’s murder continued. He played her parents a voicemail from the day she died, of himself calling her, seemingly trying to convince her parents that he had been really worried.
Joe and Rose, Rachel’s mother, went on The Late, Late Show, an Irish talk show, to appeal for witnesses to come forward. It was clear that there was tension between Rose and Joe. Joe didn’t hold back during the appeal. He stunned the audience with his level of detail and theories about what had happened to Rachel. After his appearance on the show, Joe spent the night at Nikki’s house.
In 2005, Joe O’Reilly was arrested and charged with his wife’s murder. He immediately denied it.
Nikki Pelley was arrested for withholding information about Rachel’s murder after it was discovered that she and Joe had called each other eight times on the day of the murder. She later said Joe had told her that he would kill Rachel if he knew he would get away with it, but she didn’t think he was serious.
Derek Quearney, the colleague who provided Joe’s alibi was also charged with giving false information. It turned out that he hadn’t actually seen Joe until much later that day. He had just assumed that Joe was at the depot as when he called him, Joe said he was there. The two eventually bumped into each other before driving separately to the office. Those details meant that Joe would have had time to go back home and kill Rachel.
CCTV footage showed Joe leaving the office where he worked at 8:07 am. Half a mile away from the O’Reilly home, CCTV at Murphy’s Quarry showed Rachel driving past at 9:03 am, taking the children to school. Joe was captured driving past at 9:25 am, before Rachel drove back past at 9:41 am, It seems that Joe had driven back home, waiting for Rachel to return home. At 9:59 am, CCTV showed Joe driving back in the direction of his work.
Joe’s phone pinged off a cell tower near the home at 9:52 am when he received a call from a friend, and again when he made a call to Rachel. This information contradicted his alibi of being at work all day. He had also sent Rachel a text; “You and the boys sleep ok? Wish Jacqui a Happy Birthday for me please xxx”, most likely after she was already dead.
Investigators wanted as much evidence as possible against Joe, so when Rachel’s dad told them about Joe’s strange behaviour at her funeral, they got an exhumation order to recover the letter Joe had put in Rachel’s coffin. It said: “Rachel, forgive. Two words, one sentence, but I will say them forever.”
In June 2007, Joe O’Reilly’s trial for the murder of Rachel O’Reilly began. Joe pleaded not guilty. The trial lasted three weeks. The prosecution alleged that on the morning of Rachel’s murder, Joe went to the gym, and then into the office. Then, instead of going to the bus depot, he went back home and waited for Rachel to get home from the school run. When Rachel came into the bedroom, he attacked her.
After murdering his wife, Joe took a shower and put his bloodied clothes in the washing machine (there was blood evidence found on the washing machine in the utility room). Joe then headed back to the bus depot, disposing of some jewellery and other items on the way to make it seem like there had been a burglary. He also sent the text message to Rachel. At the depot, he made sure to bump into Derek before heading back to the office. When Joe got the call from his son’s nursery he asked Rachel’s mum Rose to check on her, knowing that she would find her daughter dead. When Joe arrived home, Rose tried to stop him from seeing his wife’s body but he went in anyway. His first reaction was to say “Rachel what did you do?”
In his defence, Joe claimed he had been in a state of shock since finding out about his wife’s death and because of this, had no memory of what happened that day.
In July 2007, Joe O’Reilly was found guilty of the murder of Rachel O’Reilly and sentenced to life in prison. In Ireland, the average life sentence is 20 years. After serving 14 years, prisoners can apply for parole.
Joe has maintained his innocence and has repeatedly applied for early release but remains in prison having served 16 years so far. In 2022, Joe was moved to the Midlands Prison in County Laois due to his behaviour and works in waste management inside the prison.
Sources:
https://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/say-prayer-mum-rachel-callaly-31096008
https://www.dublinlive.ie/news/dublin-news/wife-killer-joe-oreilly-now-25535867
https://www.evidencelockerpodcast.com/episodes/212-the-heinous-murder-of-rachel-oreilly-ireland
