Husband faces life term for killing love rival
A FATHER and husband is facing a life term after being convicted of murdering his wife’s lover.
A FAMILY man has been convicted of luring his wife’s lover to a secluded farmyard and murdering him before destroying the body on a pyre of wooden pallets.
Andrew Jones hatched an elaborate plan to get rid of his love rival which included making it look like the man had gone missing and taken his own life
But the suspicion of detectives was quickly aroused, and the truth emerged.
Jones denied murdering his friend of two decades Michael O’leary but was convicted following a 16-day trial at Swansea Crown Court.
During the trial the jury heard how Jones’s wife, Rhiannon, and family friend Mr O’leary were having an affair, a relationship the defendant came to know about.
On Sunday, January 26, this year Jones, from Bronwydd near Carmarthen, saw text messages from married Mr O’leary on his wife’s phone, and began to reply to them pretending to be Rhiannon using the same kind of language and references she was in the habit of using in communicating with her lover.
During the course of the exchanges Jones arranged to meet Mr O’leary at a property he owned called Cyncoed Farm.
The following evening the 53-year-old armed himself with a .22 rifle and drove to the farm in his wife’s Audi, parking the vehicle in the farmyard.
When Mr O’leary arrived expecting to see Rhiannon he was confronted by the defendant, who shot him dead.
Jones then wrapped the body in plastic and put it in the boot of the Audi before putting his friend’s shoes on, and driving off in the dead man’s work Nissan pickup, taking a bicycle with him.
The trial heard how Jones drove to a car park in Capel Dewi known as
fisherman’s car park, sent text messages to Mr O’leary’s loved ones from the deceased’s own phone
in which he said “I’m so sorry X”, and then walked to the nearby River Towy – still wearing his victim’s
shoes – and threw the phone and keys to the Nissan into the water.
Jones then rode back to Cyncoed Farm on the bicycle he had taken with him before driving home to Bronwydd with the body in the boot.
In the early hours of the following morning he built a pyre out of wooden pallets, used a digger to put Mr O’leary’s body on top, and then, after adding petrol, torched it.
Once the fire had burned to the ground, something which took more than four hours, Jones returned in the digger to put the ash and bodily remains in a skip.
The court heard police initially treated the disappearance of 55-year-old Nantgaredig man Mr O’leary as a missing persons inquiry. However, officers soon began to gather information – including GPS data from the Nissan which showed it had been at Cyncoed Farm prior to being driven to the river, and the fact that the missing man was having an affair with Jones’s wife – which meant the investigation took a very different turn.
During his trial Jones denied murder, claiming he had only taken the rifle to the meeting with Mr O’leary to “scare” him, and that his friend had died during a scuffle between the pair when the gun accidentally went off.
He then claimed to have panicked, and to have staged the fake river suicide in order to spare Mr O’leary’s wife and children the pain of finding out he had been having an affair.
Jones accepted he burnt the body.
After deliberating for two days, the jury found him guilty of murder by a majority of 11 to one.
Sentencing was adjourned to a date yet to be fixed – Jones, of Bronwydd Road, Bronwydd, Carmarthen, was told he will be given a life sentence, and the only question for the judge is how long he must serve before he can apply for parole.