Joe’ O’Reill still gets regular fan mail 14 years after receiving a life sentence for the murder of his wife Rachel Callaly and prison sources says nine different women are in contact with him
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A killer who murdered his wife still gets love letters from women who wrote to him while he was in prison.
Joe O’Reilly still gets regular fan mail 14 years after receiving a life sentence for the murder of his wife Rachel Callaly.
A prison source told DublinLive : “Joe has about nine different women in contact with him, and they all believe his story that he is innocent.
“They all regularly write and he loves the attention.
“These ladies must be really lonely to be getting involved with the likes of him.
“He must have more admirers than anyone else in the jail. For whatever reason these women seem to love him.
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“They all forget he killed his wife and he was found guilty by a jury of his peers.”
O’Reilly, 49, has lost more than four stone in weight while doing his time in Wheatfield Prison.
His former lover Nikki Pelley – who he cheated on his wife with for six months before her death – still visits him regularly.
She ended their relationship in 2017 when O’Reilly lost his final appeal against his conviction but they have remained friends.
The killer had planned to start a new life abroad with her whenever he is freed before they split.
O’Reilly is due to be considered for parole again in the next year or so, having already been refused by the Parole Board three times.
Rachel’s family, however, are adamant he must serve his time and can not be freed early.
They have vowed to fight him every inch of the way to prevent him getting out sooner than he should.
O’Reilly recently got into trouble after being found with a USB stick which featured movies and music. Prior to that he had been a model inmate.
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Rachel, 30, was battered to death in the bedroom of the home she shared with O’Reilly in the Naul, North Co Dublin, in October 2004.
He claimed to be somewhere else at the time but through the use of mobile phone technology, gardai could prove he was lying and wasn’t where he claimed to be.
O’Reilly also made a national appeal on The Late Late Show with Rachel’s mother Rose to help catch the killer.