Lying Eyes [Paperback]

Clare People journalist Emer Connolly
`A man's millions, his lover's greed, the high life enjoyed by the two, two men in their twenties poised to inherit millions through the property business, an internet trawl with a view to wiping out a family, a mysterious author who could not be traced and an Egyptian gangster'
As Úna Ní Raifeartaigh of the prosecution said, this `sounded like the plot of a film or sometimes a cheap thriller--truth can be stranger than fiction'. Sharon Collins will next month be sentenced for soliciting Essam Eid, an Egyptian poker dealer, to kill her partner and his two sons so she could inherit his estimated wealth of sixty million euro. From the prosecution's powerful opener it was clear that this case was going to grab the public imagination. What followed was a trial about a series of almost farcical events, plots and sub-plots--a proxy marriage, the bizarre emails that ultimately led to convictions being brought, the discovery of ricin in Eid's prison cell, the emails to the Gerry Ryan Show, the presenter's subsequent call to the witness stand and Collins' letters to the DPP, written against the advice of her solicitor.
In Lying Eyes, Emer Connolly, the only journalist to follow the case from day one, looks closely at Sharon Collins, the pretty, seemingly meek, baby-faced blonde and the two sides to her character. One day Collins was coolness personified; chatting and laughing animatedly, she seemed self- assured and fearless. At other times Collins was sombre and teary and wept uncontrollably after leaving the stand.
Lying Eyes contains the ludicrous emails between Eid and Collins and the letters she sent to the DPP. In these, she addresses why the case against her is so unbelievable and indeed it was. Like all those who followed the case she questions how anyone could be so naïve as to contact an assassin through a website, FedEx money to a Las Vegas address and plot to kill three members of one family in close succession; but this is what she did. One detective said that in twenty three years he had never seen so much evidence stacked against someone. In the face of being found out, Collins' continued attempts to lie her way out of trouble saw the trial deteriorate into farce. However, the seriousness of the charges should not be underestimated.
Greed ultimately transformed Collins into an evil woman who would stop at nothing until she got exactly what she wanted. The events of the trial have left lives shattered. Collins' mother has changed from a vibrant, out-going, glamorous woman to a devastated lady who rarely leaves her Ennis home. Her sons, who sat at their mother's side throughout the trial, have left Ennis for Dublin. The low-key Howards were forced to forgo their treasured privacy and suffer public humiliation. With sentencing due to take place in the coming weeks, Sharon Collins is set to pay the price for her actions. Lying Eyes is the first book to tell the full story of the trial that gripped the nation. --The Clare People, 13 October 2008