Analysis reveals 267 calls on murder accused’s phone in case of Tipperary murder of Scarlett Faulkner
The accused said that she would ‘kill no woman over a man’ in the ongoing trial of the death of Scarlett Faulkner, who was fatally assaulted near the Birdhill roundabout off the M7 in Tipperary earlier this year
A WOMAN accused of murdering Scarlett Faulkner after the deceased started seeing her husband told her cousin that she would "kill no woman over a man" and swore "on the blessed lady" that she "never put a finger on her", her trial has heard.
The 41-year-old woman has pleaded not guilty to Ms Faulkner's murder while a 17-year-old girl has pleaded not guilty to Ms Faulkner's murder, but guilty to manslaughter. They are both on trial at the Central Criminal Court. In his opening speech earlier this month, Seoirse Ó Dúnlaing SC, prosecuting, told the jury that the motive for the attack was that Ms Faulkner had begun a relationship with the older accused's husband.
Mr Ó Dúnlaing said the prosecution would seek to prove that the accused "hunted down" Ms Faulkner and her new boyfriend for 24 hours up to about 5.20pm on March 21 last. He said she finally spotted her husband in a van, chased him and rammed him off the road at the Birdhill roundabout off the M7 in Tipperary before the teenage accused used an iron bar to beat Ms Faulkner to death by the side of the road.
Sgt Jennifer Skelly this Thursday, November 12, told Mr Ó Dúnlaing that she analyzed mobile phones belonging to various people of interest to the investigation into 28-year-old Ms Faulkner's death. Sgt Skelly told Mr Ó Dúnlaing that she discovered a recording on one mobile phone of the older accused speaking to her cousin on her phone. The recording was made shortly after 5am, some 12 hours after Ms Faulkner suffered the injuries that caused her death.
Sgt Skelly said the person on the other end of the phone told the older accused, "she's stone dead" in hospital. The accused referred to her husband, saying he had a hatchet and was "trying to cut my head off". She swore that she "never put a finger to her", adding: "May I die with cancer."
She added: "I'll tell you one thing, I'd kill no woman over a man."
The accused said her husband had "started breaking up my car" with the hatchet and was "trying to kill me stone dead". She added: "I swear on the blessed lady I never put a finger on her."
Sgt Skelly said her analysis showed that there were 267 completed or attempted calls to and from the older accused's phone on the day of the alleged murder. Under cross examination, Sgt Skelly agreed with Marc Thompson SC, defending, that messages on the older accused's phone as far back as December 2025 referred to her husband cheating with a woman who she referred to as "a scabby smelly whore".
The witness also agreed that at 5.40pm, less than 20 minutes after the assault on Ms Faulkner, the accused sent "panicked" voice notes to another person's phone, begging her to "come fast" and to "bring mammy, she'll know what to do".
The trial continues before Mr Justice Kerida Naidoo and a jury of eight men and four women.