And they led, in the end, to her murder.Michael Clifford reports Journey to murder AT 12 MINUTES past eight that morning, soon after he left the office, Nikki phoned him. The two lovers talked for 26 minutes.

What transpired between them is unknown. Nikki Pelley says she has no recollection of the content of the call. The gardai believe O'Reilly was letting off steam to Pelley, following a row with his wife the previous evening. But whatever they talked about, Joe O'Reilly was at that stage focused on killing, according to yesterday's verdict in the Central Criminal Court. He was on his way to murder his wife, Rachel, in the home they shared with their two sons in north Co Dublin.

It was Monday 4 October 2004, a clear, bright morning.

Looking in from the outside, Joe O'Reilly had a good life. At just 32 years of age, he and Rachel were already on their second home.

The previous year they had moved from the north Dublin suburb of Whitehall to the country. Their new home was a comfortable bungalow, Lambay View, situated in the townland of Baldarragh, outside the village of The Naul. The move was designed to give the two boys, Luke and Adam, a better, safer upbringing. The mortgage of 230,000 was well within the couple's financial capabilities.

Rachel worked only one day a week in a solicitor's office in Donnybrook. She supplemented her income acting as an agent for the cosmetics company Avon. She also got involved in selling Tupperware. On the day of her death, there was 800 in cash in her home, the proceeds of some of her work. The working schedule she had established allowed her to devote more time to her children.

Most of their rude financial health could be attributed to Joe's position as a manager in an outdoor advertising firm called Viacom. He had worked his way up through the ranks in business in a number of different companies and now he oversaw a staff of 26.

In many ways, the O'Reillys were beneficiaries of the opportunities on offer for a considerable slice of the population in Ireland today. Neither had much educational attainment beyond second level. Neither had qualifications in one of the traditional professions or trades.

Before the boom, when opportunities were limited, they might have been candidates for emigration or confined to a lower socio-economic bracket.

By 2004, hard work and aptitude were enough to provide them with the platform to realise their dreams of middleclass comfort and a bright start for their children. They seemed to have a good life:

healthy children, a lovely home in the country and no money worries.

That morning, as he spoke to Nikki Pelley, Joe drove north. His office was based in the Bluebell Industrial Estate, in the west of the city, close to the M50.

It is not clear whether he took the M50 or made his way through the city. Rushhour traffic was at its height. He may have suspected that the M50 would have CCTV at various junctures, particularly the West-Link toll bridge. Most likely, he drove across to Finglas before joining the motorway, a route he travelled in the opposite direction in driving to work earlier that morning.

He left word at Viacom that he was going to the Broadstone bus garage in the north inner city to check on the work of one of the company's employees. The operations manager Derek Quearney was due to follow him in his own car. O'Reilly left a clue to his real intention that morning in an email he sent just before leaving the office. At 8.04am, he emailed a friend, Ciaran Gallagher. "I will be out and about most of the morning, and in poor phone coverage areas, so unless I hear otherwise from you, lunch at 2pm, usual place?"

He knew there would be no lunch but postponing it might leave a trail for the cops. His schedule of a visit to Broadstone wouldn't have placed him in an area of poor coverage.

But he wanted minimum phone contact that morning.

Eight minutes after the call from Nikki Pelley was terminated, she sent Joe a text message. By then he was close to the M1, the motorway that sweeps up through north Co Dublin. He was well on his way home, to where he knew Rachel would be returning after dropping Adam off at a local creche.

The previous Saturday, Rachel had sustained a minor injury playing hockey. Joe advised her not to go to the gym that morning in case she might aggravate the injury. He knew she would be at home. He knew she wasn't expecting him until some time that evening. The knowledge provided him with the element of surprise.

Family life Rachel O'Reilly's mother, Teresa Lowe, was 17 and single when she gave birth to a baby girl on 10 October 1973. Rachel was put up for adoption. Within weeks, she was adopted by Jim and Rose Callaly, a couple who would eventually adopt five children and raise them in their home in Whitehall in the north of the city.

All indications are she had a happy childhood. The Callalys remain a closeknit family since the children grew to be adults. Rachel attended the local school where she is remembered as a bubbly, friendly girl. One of her schoolfriends at second level was Jackie Connor. The friendship grew as they became adults. Jackie was Rachel's bridesmaid and godmother to her elder son, Luke. "She was outgoing, caring, sporting and self-sufficient, " Connor told the Central Criminal Court. "We were friends since we were 14."

After she left school, Rachel worked in different jobs. She moved into a flat in nearby Fairview. When she was 17, she looked up her birth mother, Teresa Lowe. By then, Lowe had married and was mother to three other children. Mother and daughter established ongoing contact. Rachel was introduced to Lowe's family and got on particularly well with her son, Thomas.

Soon after leaving school she began working part-time in Arnott's department store in the city centre. Joe O'Reilly also worked there. Rachel was just 18 when the couple began dating. Joe was two years older than Rachel. He grew up in Kilbarrack, a few miles from Rachel's home in Whitehall. He has a brother Derek and two sisters, Ann and Martina. Martina was born blind and with Down's Syndrome. She lives in a residential unit in Ballymun.

After his parents' marriage failed, Joe O'Reilly's father moved to Wales. Some years ago, his mother Ann moved out to Dunleer in Co Louth, where O'Reilly's sister, also Ann, lives. His brother Derek is based in Derry. The family have remained close through the last three years.

After Arnotts, O'Reilly moved to work for software firm Oracle, where he was appointed a team leader, the first step on the management ladder. He is remembered by one former work colleague as "a bit of an oddball but, on the whole, fairly sound". Another source recalls that he used to come to work in the same clothes nearly every day. "He was always wearing a pair of slip-on shoes, tracksuit bottoms and one of those patterned jumpers you get for Christmas, " the source said. He was regarded as an excellent worker, who was entirely focused on the job at hand.

Another source said he was fine unless you fell out with him. "Then he'd try to get at you without confronting you. If he knew he could intimidate you, he'd dominate you, " he said. "But even though he's a big man physically, if you stood up to him, he'd back off."

This source said the evidence of Wesley Kearns at the murder trial resonated with his experience. Kearns told the court O'Reilly had fired him at Viacom. After the firing, Kearns, a much smaller man, picked up a fire extinguisher and went for O'Reilly, who retreated and locked himself in his office.

From Oracle, O'Reilly moved to Microsoft.

"He was a bit smarmy but fine as long as you got on with him, " according to one former colleague there. A non-drinker, O'Reilly supplemented his earnings at this time by working in a video shop in Inchicore in the evenings.

His domestic life had blossomed by then.

Joe and Rachel were married in 1997. After renting for a while, they bought a house in Whitehall. Luke was born in 1999 and then, two years later, Adam arrived. After Luke's birth, Rachel gave up full-time work but still did one day a week in the solicitor's office where she had been employed. In May 2003, the O'Reillys moved to Baldarragh, outside The Naul. The progress of family life was going according to plan.

Joe got on well with Rachel's family. Her youngest brother, Anthony, was a frequent visitor to Lambay View, often staying overnight.

"I was extremely close to Rachel, Joe and the kids. Me and Joe used to go to the flicks together, " Anthony told the court. "I have a lot of good memories from that house."

At home, Rachel got involved in community activity. There was opposition in Baldarragh to the erection of a telephone mast in the nearby Murphy's Quarry. Rachel went on Newstalk 106 to argue the case for residents. In a bitterly ironic twist, the mast itself would eventually prove vital in fingering her husband for her murder.

Rachel was particularly sporty and played hockey regularly with a club in Glasnevin, near where she grew up. The couple both got involved in softball when Joe was working in Oracle. From there, they joined another team, The Renegades. Rachel took to the game. In 2003, she was voted player of the year. At the end of the season, the team were invited to the O'Reilly home for a party. Over a dozen members attended. Tents were pitched in the back garden. Everybody stayed the night, partying into the wee small hours.

On the fateful morning, as he neared Baldarragh, the good times from the past were most likely far from Joe O'Reilly's mind. He replied to Nikki's text at 8.48am. Eight minutes later, his colleage Derek Quearney attempted to ring him but the call was aborted. He was now only a few miles from the family home.

Motive Beneath the surface of a good life, dark currents swirled through the O'Reillys' marriage. When Joe met Nikki Pelley in January 2004, he told her he and Rachel had been sleeping in separate bedrooms for 18 months.

That may have been a gross exaggeration but there were problems.

At softball games, the unhappiness made itself known in public rows between the pair.

"They were often at it, " one former team mate in The Renegades remembers. "Particularly Joe, starting off these screaming matches. It got to be a bit much for the whole team." At one stage the couple were spoken to about the rows and things quietened down.

But at a get-together a few months before the murder, there was another flare up, allegedly over which of them would play in a forthcoming tournament and who would mind the children.

By then, Joe was seeking companionship outside the marriage.

"I never would have put him down as a womaniser, " a former work colleague from over a decade ago says. "One of the lads at work was playing around and Joe used to let on he was too and went on about all the things he did with women. But you could see through it. I was very surprised to learn about the affair."

In 2003, he had an affair with a woman and there may have been at least one other amorous encounter before he met Nikki Pelley in January 2004.

Their affair grew into a relationship. By that summer he was seeing her at least twice a week, Tuesday and Saturday evenings. All indications are that Rachel didn't know about the affair or, if she did, she didn't want to know.

If she was aware of it, she didn't confide in her best friend, Jackie Connor. "Rachel said she wasn't happy, " Connor told the court. "Joe was working a lot, she was on her own a lot of the time. Family life was suffering."

Text correspondence and Pelley's evidence indicate that she and Joe had plans for the future. In a text on 16 July that year he wrote, "Hey, I want only to be your husband, I know my place." The following morning at 8.29am:

"Good morning beautiful. I'm completely crazy about you and can't wait to see you again." On 15 September, just three weeks before the murder: "Ditto, my beautiful bride to be." He introduced his sons to Pelley. They went to the zoo on occasions, appearing as a family unit, while Rachel played her Saturday hockey.

Whatever about his marital infidelity, he appears to have been a good parent. "I would categorise Joe as a very caring father, " a softball team mate John Austin told the court.

Austin also testified that Joe spoke of leaving the marriage to rent a flat in nearby Balbriggan in order to be close to the children. Pelley told the court how they talked with the children themselves of a possible future together.

The most devastating evidential motive heard by the court came in five emails exchanged between Joe and his sister Ann on 9 June 2004, four months before the murder.

The previous day, Joe and Rachel had visited the social services in Coolock on foot of an anonymous complaint that Rachel was abusive towards the children. It emerged in the emails the complainant had been Joe's mother. His sister was also onside, feeding into his portrayal of Rachel as a bad mother and somewhat repulsive person.

Early on in the correspondence, he referred to the meeting. "Interesting choice of terminology used by the social worker. Everything was 'Rachel was the main care giver and I was the secondary care giver'. I'm already Mr weekend custody in the eyes of the state. It doesn't bode well, does it?"

The observation fitted neatly into the case O'Reilly was making for himself but conveniently ignored the reality of his family life. Joe worked long hours and when he wasn't away working he was away having an affair. He saw precious little of his children during the week. He stayed with Pelley most Saturday nights. How could Rachel not have been the primary care giver?

The correspondence referred to a gettogether by the O'Reilly siblings the previous weekend at which Joe and his brother and sister were apparently disturbed by Rachel's parenting skills. "Adam was 'reefed' up by the arm and dragged to bed and she nearly tore Luke's ears of putting his PJ top on over his head. As usual, I had a right go at her, but as usual, by that stage the damage is already done, " Joe wrote.

Later in the emails, he makes a reference to the future which was telling. "It really wound me up last time as I go through every angle I can with the boys before I make a move. Yesterday proved yet again the injustices that exist in this country."

His sister is onside. "So you're going out for a meal on Friday night with her. Should be nice and romantic (not). Try again to talk to her about her lack of motherly instincts.

Have you told her she's none? Does she admit to it?"

Joe replied: "Where the hell did you hear I was going for a night out with that c***? ? ?

A meal? I'd rather choke." Then a few lines later: "Just to drill the point home, Me + Rachel + Marriage = Over."

Any analysis of the content of the emails is speculative but there are hints that portray a different picture than that being painted by the actual words. Rachel's crime as a mother was to shout at her children. Is that unusual for a parent of two small children? Her son was discommoded as she pulled his pyjama top over his head. She grabbed one of the boys roughly. Does this amount to such bad parenting that requires the attention of the social services? Or did Joe have another agenda in propagating this stuff?

He certainly wanted his own family to buy into his agenda. "Maybe now, you'll both [his sister and mother] listen to what I have to say and not go about with your heads in the sand."

Earlier in the emails, he tells Ann about leaving the previous day's appointment. "I think matters may get worse, as she told me in the carpark that 'I knew you were overreacting going on to me about shouting at the kids. Did you hear them? Everybody does it and I am a good mother.'" Rachel felt compelled to reassure herself that she was a good mother, despite her husband trying to convince her otherwise. She knew her marriage was under pressure and, feeling vulnerable, may have been short with the children at times, as any parent would. If there was any abuse going on, there is evidence to suggest it was emotional abuse being perpetrated on her.

His real agenda was obvious elsewhere in the correspondence. "By all means drag her fat ass outside and kick it into the middle of next week but not in front of the boys, and don't leave any marks that can and will be used against you in a court of law." There is also a reference to " the state of the house that that lazy c*** leaves it in".

If O'Reilly's purpose was to portray his wife as merely a bad mother, the mask was beginning to slip. She "repulsed" him, as he said elsewhere in the correspondence. He wanted rid of her but was afraid he might not get custody. Other "angles" would have to be explored.

In a statement he provided to the gardai, Joe told them of the meeting with the social worker. He said he had supported Rachel through the process following this anonymous complaint about her. This portrayal of the loyal husband was at odds with the emails and with Pelley's evidence. When asked how he referred to his wife after marital rows, Pelley replied: "Wasp. Or c***. It wasn't a term he used often."

On the day before the murder, all appeared well in the O'Reilly family. Rachel was a bit sore from the minor leg injury she sustained at hockey the previous afternoon. The four of them went out for the day to Liffey Valley shopping centre. Afterwards, they called on Thomas Lowe at his home in Walkinstown and stayed for over an hour.

From the outside, they must have appeared for all the world like a normal family unit on a Sunday outing. It would be the last occasion on which the two boys would do anything with both their parents. That evening, gardai believe a row flared, finally convincing O'Reilly he should kill his wife as soon as possible in order to resolve any difficulties she presented for him.

A terrible death At 8.58am, two minutes after the last call, Quearney attempted to phone Joe O'Reilly again but the call was aborted. The communication was picked up by a mast in north Co Dublin, halfway between Swords and The Naul. O'Reilly was less than 10 minutes from home. At 9.03am, Rachel's grey Renault Scenic passed the entrance to Murphy's Quarry, near the family home, Lambay View.

She was on her way to the creche with Adam, the last time she would make that journey.

Seven minutes later, a dark estate car, believed to be Joe's Fiat Marea, passed the same spot heading in the opposite direction en route to Lambay View. He received another call from Quearney at 9.25am, which lasted just over two minutes. By then, according to the CCTV and phone records, Joe would have been at home, waiting for his wife's return. At that exact time, Rachel had just dropped Adam off at the creche. She spoke briefly to another young mother, Kathy Henry, who remembered Rachel wearing a grey tracksuit bottom and dark top.

At 9.41am, Rachel's car passed the entrance to Murphy's Quarry, returning from her drop.

She was now a few minutes away from Lambay View and the fate that awaited her.

At 9.59am, Joe's car passed, going in the opposition direction, away from the house.

Within the space of those 18 minutes, Joe O'Reilly is deemed to have murdered his wife.

She suffered a terrible death. Her body was discovered in her bedroom. Her car keys were found under the body, implying the attack happened very soon after she entered the house. Pathology and forensic evidence of the blood patterns suggest she was subjected to a sustained attack with a blunt object.

A dumbbell missing from the spare room in the house is believed to have been the weapon.

"She was violently beaten over a sustained period while she lay on the ground, " Dr Diane Daly, a forensic scientist, told the court. She also said: "The assailant was at some point during the assault crouching or kneeling in this position [next to where the body was found]."

Rachel received between four and nine blows to the head. According to state pathologist Marie Cassidy, the injuries were consistent with her being attacked as she lay on the ground. An injury to her wrist suggests she was held down as some of the blows were administered.

There was also evidence that in an injury to her arm consistent with a defensive stance. If this is so, then she suffered a few moments of terror, aware her attacker was intent on killing her. Cassidy concluded she may have lived for a few hours after the attack, her life ebbing away, until she choked on her own blood.

Joe O'Reilly provided a few clues to the exact circumstances of her death nine days after the murder. On 12 October, gardai returned possession of the house to O'Reilly.

The extensive blood splatters in Rachel's bedroom and lesser amounts in the boys' bedroom and the bathroom had not been washed away. Joe slept in the house that night. The following morning, he invited Rachel's family, the Callalys, up to the house, saying he had felt a great sense of peace there and it might be helpful.

On day seven of the trial, the court heard about the events of that day. The jury absented themselves for what was a trial within a trial in which judge Barry White was to determine whether the evidence from that day could be put before the jury.

Rose Callaly told the judge that she, her husband Jim, her son Paul and his wife Denise travelled to Baldarragh. "Joe brought us down to the room, " she told the judge. "It was still in the same state [as the day of the murder], there was blood everywhere. Joe was looking at the blood splatters and passing remarks. He was making movements with his hands as to how she was hit.