He appeared for sentencing via video-link claiming to have Covid symptoms despite testing negative, refusing to face the court and the relatives of the woman he so brutally murdered. He claimed to have amnesia, but remembered some details with extreme accuracy, his amnesia only seemingly affecting his memory of the hours around Jennifer’s murder.Įven after being found guilty by a jury, O’Neill continues to taunt his victim’s family. He spent the entire trial in a wheelchair despite there being no medical reason. He fought extradition, he claimed numerous illnesses, none of which were ever backed up by medical evidence. O’Neill was quickly identified as a suspect.Ī manhunt was launched on both sides of the border and he was picked up in Bundoran, Co Donegal.īut that was only the start of a protracted period of wrangling as O’Neill did everything in his power to frustrate the justice system. She was identified by her dental records, her funeral a closed coffin one. Her body was so badly charred that the family were never able to see it. That night Jennifer’s children lost not just a devoted and loving mother, but also their home - every toy, every picture, every memory destroyed. “I couldn’t breathe, I was hyperventilating.” I can only describe it like an elephant stomping on my chest,” she recalled. In an interview with the Belfast Telegraph earlier this year, Jennifer’s sister Claire described the moment she found out it had actually been murder. The family at first thought the beloved mother, sister and daughter had perished as the result of a house fire. Neighbours had to flee their homes as the inferno raged. So fierce was it that the roof of the property collapsed on top of her. The blaze is seen catching in the top bedroom window as the savage killer makes his escape, again with a coat covering his face. Not content with having murdered her, O’Neill set a fire in her bedroom to destroy the evidence. She would have been no match for a man armed with a knife. Jennifer was stabbed three times in the chest, the wounds puncturing her major organs. The court was told the motivation for the attack was sexual. The west Belfast man had armed himself with a knife from Jennifer’s kitchen. The shock of finding a stranger in your home in the middle of the night is terrifying even to contemplate. Raymond O’Neill jailed for minimum of 22 years for murder of Belfast mother-of-three Jennifer DornanĪ prosecution barrister described the attack as “every woman’s worst nightmare” - and it was.
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