Melissa Mahon had positive pregnancy test, court hears
The jury in the trial of the Sligo man accused of murdering 14 year-old Melissa Mahon has heard that she took a pregnancy test which was positive before she went missing.
Two teenage girls gave evidence via video link on day 12 of the Central Criminal Court trial of Ronald McManus. They said that they were with Melissa Mahon in the toilets of a McDonalds restaurant when she took the test. Both girls told the court that it was positive.
Mr McManus (aged 44), also known as Ronnie Dunbar, of Rathbraughan Park, Sligo, has pleaded not guilty to murdering the schoolgirl in September 2006. He also denies threatening to kill one of his daughters, Samantha Conroy.
One 17 year-old girl told Sean Gillane BL, prosecuting, that some time before Melissa went missing, they were in Sligo town with the other witness.
She said that Melissa bought a pregnancy test in Tesco and took the test in the toilets of McDonalds. The witness said she saw the stick and it was positive.
The girl said Melissa was “kind of happy, kind of delighted in a way”.
Under cross examination by Brendan Grehan SC, defending, the girl said she could not remember when the test had taken place. She also agreed that Melissa was seeing a, "lad from Caltra". She agreed that Melissa had told her that the accused was like a father to her.
Melissa Mahon went missing in Sligo from the care of the Health Service Executive on September 14, 2006. Her remains were found on the shore of Lough Gill in February 2008.
The second witness told the court that she was also present when Melissa took the pregnancy test and said “as far as I can remember the first stick came up positive”.
Mr McManus’ youngest daughter today completed her evidence. She was cross examined by Mr Grehan in relation to evidence she gave at the end of proceedings on Wednesday about her father putting his hands around Melissa’s neck and choking her.
Mr Grehan said that she had never mentioned this detail before in any statement or in her direct evidence in court. She replied “there are things you remember afterwards if you try hard... I remember things every day of the week”.
The 16 year-old denied Mr Grehan’s suggestion that she was making her evidence up as she went along. She said she could not explain how she had previously left this information out.
She agreed that she was taken into care in October 2007 and had only telephone contact with her father since then. She said she never told her social workers what had happened to Melissa.
She agreed that she rang Sligo radio stations to play requests for her father after she went into care.
Mr Grehan put a number of text messages to the girl which she accepted that she had sent to her father. In one message sent in February 2008 she wrote, “I’d rather me than you. You haven’t done anything wrong. I’m lost without you”.
She told the court: “Can I just say I was 15 and brainwashed”.
The girl told gardaí that in another text message on the same date the accused said that he was sick of life and sick of living and that when the authorities come to get him he would inject himself with caustic soda.
Another teenage girl, now 16 years old, told the court that she lived near the McManus house and got on well with the family. She said she had seen Melissa get into the boot of the accused man’s car on one occasion.
She said that she got on well with the accused and would ring him for cigarettes and lifts in his car. She said she was often in the house and said the accused and Melissa would sit together on the couch with her leaning up against him.
The girl agreed with Mr Grehan that she had received a threatening text from the accused man’s youngest daughter but she had ignored it. She also agreed that she had never seen anything unusual in the Dunbar house.
The trial continues before Mr Justice Barry White and a jury of six men and six women. It is expected to continue for another two weeks.
