Midleton man accused of murder must wait for verdict

Adam O’Keeffe, aged 27, admitted manslaughter but pleaded not guilty to the murder of Amy McCarthy, aged 22, on April 29 or April 30, 2017, at 36 Sheares St, Cork City. A jury of five men and six women — one juror was discharged during the case — deliberated today after Ms Justice Eileen Creedon addressed them on the law related to the case.

They returned to court in the afternoon requesting to hear again the evidence given by three of the witnesses. Ms Justice Creedon read from the transcript the evidence of Dean Nugent, a friend of the accused and of the deceased. The jury also wanted to hear the evidence from the pathologist Dr Margot Bolster and from the deceased’s aunt, Deborah O’Leary.

Mr Nugent, a friend of both parties, was with them around the streets of Cork that Saturday afternoon and later that night drinking in the squat. “He was asking me does she cheat and all this. He was getting more and more worked up about it. He was going on and on that she cheated on him,” he Mr Nugent said.

About his time later in the squat at Sheares St, he said: “He lost the plot… He was hitting her, pushing her an all that… She was telling him stop. I couldn’t do anything. I tried to stop him… There was other stuff in the room he was throwing at her… A laminator… She was sitting down on a chair. She was there ages sitting in the corner bleeding and crying. I was telling him stop. I was on the streets [living there at the time] in rag condition. I couldn’t do anything to stop him. I told him to stop. I was begging him to stop.”

Dr Margaret Bolster testified how she found extensive evidence of bruising all over Ms McCarthy’s body as well as on her face, scalp and neck.

She Ms McCarthy had not suffered any fractures and the bruising was not consistent with any weapons being used but she had suffered blunt force trauma to the head which resulted in a subdural haemorrhage in the brain. She found evidence of manual strangulation to her neck which would have reduced oxygen flows to her brain and acute alcohol intoxication which depressed the central nervous system significantly.

Dr Bolster said it appeared that Ms McCarthy was alive but in a coma for between four to eight hours though she believed it was more likely to be the lower figure of four hours and that this could have looked like deep sleep.

Another man using the squat, Michael McInerney, called in to the squat to pick up a sleeping bag at around 1am on the Sunday and said he saw Adam O’Keeffe and Amy McCarthy sleeping side by side with Amy snoring. Defence senior counsel Brendan Grehan, defending, said that tragically, a medical intervention at that stage could have saved her life.

The last prosecution witness was Deborah O’Leary, Ms McCarthy’s aunt, who was always in contact with Ms McCarthy and Mr O’Keeffe. Ms O’Leary said Mr O’Keeffe said to her that Saturday afternoon that Ms McCarthy did the dirt on him and she asked him, “Why don’t you dump her?”

Ms O’Leary said her niece, the late Amy McCarthy, did have a problem with alcohol and tablets. She had a son with Mr O’Keeffe in January 2016 and did very well in addiction treatment and in a mother and baby programme.

However, Mr O’Keeffe was released from prison in March 2017. Ms McCarthy, who had visited him in prison, would meet him every morning after his release, spend the day around the streets with him, and then return to her home in Greenmount at night.

The only defence witness was Bernard Tobin, a drug counsellor, who disclosed the background history Mr O’Keeffe gave him in March 2016, a year before the killing. Mr Tobin said the accused told him his father beat him from the age of eight and that he began to fight back from the age of 12. His mother left the home and Mr O’Keeffe had no relationship with her. He said a grandmother was a very caring person. He lost a number of his friends through suicide.

From the age of 10, he was drinking and smoking cannabis. By 12, he was on benzodiazapam. At 13, he was on cocaine and speed, and by 16, he was using heroin.

Mr Grehan said, “Adam and Amy were addicted to substances and maybe also addicted to one another. [On the CCTV of them in Cork City throughout that Saturday] they are following one another around like puppies on the street.

“Out of a horrific upbringing with no one left to support him he found Amy McCarthy, the love of his life and the mother of his child.

“Almost regardless of what happens to him [in court] at some time — if he is allowed to do so — he is going to have to face his son and explain why his mother is not around.”

The accused apologised to the family of the late Amy McCarthy several times during interviews and in his own words described the attack on her as vicious, disgraceful, scummy and outrageous. As for their relationship, he said, “We loved each other, we were all over the place too.”