Who is Joe O’Reilly’s lover Nikki Pelley?

TWISTED Joe O’Reilly murdered his wife Rachel in a brutal attack in 2004.

Despite several attempts to cover up his crime, detectives eventually nailed the dad after his secret love affair with a woman called Nikki Pelley was revealed.

Nikki Pelley was having an affair with Joe O’Reilly when he killed his wife Rachel

Who is Joe O’Reilly’s lover Nikki Pelley?

At the time, Nikki was working an advertising executive in Dublin.

She is understood to have previously had a job at the same outdoor advertising company as Joe, but she reportedly left the firm before their relationship turned into anything other than colleagues.

Nikki later met Joe again at a function in January 2004, and not long afterwards they began their affair – meeting up several times a week, usually at her house.

They had been sneaking around for months before he bludgeoned his wife Rachel O’Reilly, previously Callaly, to death at their home in 2004.

Joe was locked up in 2007, but Nikki has stuck by him ever since.

And while the pair separated when Joe lost his final appeal against his conviction, they said to have remained close friends.

She has paid him several visits is prison, where he is serving a life sentence.

But she is to thank for Joe’s caging as it was evidence related to her which helped cops investigating Rachel’s murder put him away.

During a police interview, a close friend of Nikki, known as Ms D, told guards that Nikki had mentioned Joe once told her that he would kill Rachel if he thought he could get away with it.

Though Pelley was never a ­suspect for the crime, police met with her to discuss the ­conversation.

Recalling the day he discovered evil Joe’s motive, former detective inspector Pat Marry said: “When we spoke to Nikki the second time, she did say, ‘oh yeah, Joe had told me he would kill Rachel if he thought he would get away with it’.

“She said he only said it in passing, she didn’t think he would do anything, but it was said. So she said she would give evidence of that.

“And it was only the second time we spoke to Nikki that she confessed that she was in love with Joe and that she wanted to spend the rest of her life with Joe, and that she wanted to marry Joe and that he was the bees knees.”

The comments Joe made to his lover about killing Rachel were brought to the Director of Public Prosecutions and it was decided that he could be charged with murdering his wife.

Marry added: “They believed we had enough at that stage, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back for the purpose of a charge.”

Joe O’Reilly is serving life in prison for the murder of his wife Rachel

Did Rachel O’Reilly know about Joe O’Reilly’s affair?

It is not known for certain whether Rachel was aware her husband was having an affair.

However, Nikki told the court in 2007 she had only seen Rachel once in person and it was unlikely she had any idea about Joe’s infidelity, the Irish Times reports.

When asked by Mr Denis Vaughan Buckley SC whether she had interacted with Rachel before, Nikki replied: “Once, well, I didn’t meet her but I saw her once at a softball event.”

And when asked: “Did you think she knew?”, Nikki replied: “I don’t think so.”