This article is from page 86 of the 2008-05-27 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 86 JPG
DETAILS of email exchanges be- tween ‘lyingeyes’ and ‘hitman- forhire’ were outlined to the jury by the Prosecution, on the second day of the trial.
“Lying eyes 1s Sharon Collins,” said Prosecutor Tom O’Connell.
At around lunchtime on August 2, 2006, a search for ‘hitman’ was car- ried out on a desktop computer at the Howards’ business at Westgate Busi- ness Park, Ennis.
A webpage, www.hitman.us, was accessed at 1.15pm and again after 3pm. At 4.01pm, the user accessed the inbox of sharoncollins@eircom. net and read email.
“Someone using it knows Sharon Collins’ password and is using her email,” said Mr O’Connell.
At 4.47pm, Yahoo searches were carried out for inheritance rights. At 5.17pm, the user logged into ‘lyingeyes98@yahoo.ie’ email ac- count and at 5.42pm an email was sent from sharoncollins@eircom.net to lyingeyes98 @yahoo.ie.
“Somebody sitting at the computer in the office, knowing Sharon Col- lins’ password, sent an email from her email address to ‘lyingeyes.’ That site had only been set up that day. The person sending the email knew that email had been set up that day and was testing the site,” said Mr O’Connell.
On August 8, 2006, the user ac- cessed = sharoncollins@eircom.net at 1.02pm and at 1.05pm, the user signed into lyingeyes98@yahoo.ie. At 9.53pm that night, the user ac- cessed = sharoncollins@eircom.net and at 9.58pm, the user ran searches on yahoo for ‘assassins for hire.’
“At 10 o’clock, the user accessed a webpage www.hitmanforhire.net and uses it. It tells you how to or- der a hitman for contract,’ said Mr O’Connell.
On August 16, the user of the office computer logged into ‘lyingeyes.’ The user then carried out a search for FedEx courier service and a tracking number was used.
This showed that the shipment had
left the previous day and was due to arrive in Las Vegas the following day, August 17.
“The significance is that the person using ‘lyingeyes’ knows the tracking number. “‘Lyingeyes’ is checking the progress of the package,” said Mr O’Connell.
“Sharon Collins personally went to FedEx… The next day in the of- fice of Downes and Howard business is checking the tracking number of the package sent to the US. The in- ference is that ‘lyingeyes’ is Sharon Collins,” he said.
Mr O’Connell said that the hard drive of the laptop computer which was stolen from the business premis- es was analysed.
He said that in the early hours of the morning afterthe alleged burglary, the computer was used to access anumber of web-based email pages. These included hitmanforhire@ yahoo. ooynee tonyluciano@yahoo. com, essameid@yahoo.com and tengels@yahoo.com.
“This shows the State would invite you to draw the inference that Essam Eid is ‘hitmanforhire’, Tony Luciano. He had the computer. It’s an infer- ence you can draw. It is up to you,” Mr O’Connell told the jury.
Mr O’Connell said a third computer was also examined. This was a lap- top computer seized at PJ Howard’s home, Ballybeg House, on February 26, 2007.