A 31-year-old chef was jailed for life on Friday for the murder of a 64-year-old father of three whose dismembered body was found hidden in the grounds of a derelict house in Cork city during the Christmas holidays just over three years ago.
Ionut Cosmin Nicolescu, with an address at Branistea village, Damovita county in Romania, has denied the murder of father-of-three Frankie Dunne, on a date unknown between December 27th and December 28th, 2019, at Castle Greine House, Boreenmanna Road, Cork.
But last month a jury of eight men and four women at the Central Criminal Court sitting at the Anglesea Street Courthouse in Cork, after almost eight hours of deliberations, unanimously found Nicolescu guilty of the murder of Mr Dunne.
Mr Justice Paul McDermott remanded Nicolescu in custody for sentence until Friday when defence counsel Philipp Rahn SC informed the court that his client “accepted the finality of the jury’s verdict and would not be lodging any appeal of their decision”.
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Mr Justice McDermott said: “Any trial of this kind focuses on legal and factual descriptions, probably more so in this case, given the gruesome facts. We are refocusing now on Francis Dunne, to recognise him, not only as a victim of a horrible crime but what he meant to his family and friends.”
He noted that the late Mr Dunne was a father of three adult children, and they had given him great support over the years as he had led a difficult life due to an alcohol dependency, but he would always be loved by his family who would be forever haunted by the way he died.
He said it was a particularly difficult case for the Dunne family to sit through given the gruesome evidence as Nicolescu sought to hide Mr Dunne’s body by dismembering his remains after killing him in the grounds of Castle Greine House.
“We now know that Francis Dunne’s murder consisted of being bludgeoned with a bottle and strangled. His body was then shockingly disrespected and dismembered. He [Nicholescu] has yet to express remorse for his crime or give any explanation for what he has done.”
He sentenced Nicolescu to the mandatory term of life imprisonment, and he backdated it from November 8th, 2021 when Nicolescu was taken into custody in his native Romania on foot of a European Arrest Warrant seeking his extradition back to Ireland to stand trial for Mr Dunne’s murder.
During the trial, the jury heard how Rockboro resident, Joe Pierce, discovered Mr Dunne’s dismembered body in bushes in the grounds of the derelict Castle Greine House while looking for his cat on the evening of December 28th, 2019 and he alerted gardaí.
Gardaí identified the body as that of Mr Dunne who lived at the nearby Cork Simon shelter at Clanmornin House where staff informed them that he was last seen alive leaving the house at about 7.30pm on the evening of December 27th.
Cork Simon key worker Mary O’Driscoll recalled that Mr Dunne was determined to tackle his alcohol dependency and he was in regular contact with his family who were supportive of his efforts to reduce his alcohol intake which he was doing when he disappeared.
“Frankie could have been anyone’s father or brother or uncle in Ireland. He loved music. His family were very important to him. They were very much in contact with him. He would visit them about once a week. They were very involved in music and traditional Irish music was his life.”
State Pathologist Dr Heidi Okkers said Mr Dunne died from neck compression leading to asphyxia associated with blunt force trauma to the head, but it was not possible to say whether Mr Dunne suffered the neck compression or the blunt force trauma first as both injuries were of similar age.
She said she was able to establish that the decapitation and amputation of his arms occurred after death as she found there was no evidence that blood had been flowing through Mr Dunne’s body at the time that the incisions were made to decapitate him and amputate his arms.
Nicolescu, who was squatting in an upstairs bedroom in the derelict Castle Greine House, was identified as a suspect by gardaí and Chief Supt Vincent O’Sullivan led a team of officers to Romania where they sat in on an interview conducted with him on their behalf by a Romanian prosecutor.
He said he returned to Castle Greine House on the night of December 27th, 2019 where he met a big man with a machete who ordered him to accompany him and they came upon a second man kneeling over a man on the ground and taking off his clothes before the other man began cutting his throat.
“He told me to put the head in the bag. I felt disgusted. I grabbed the head and put it in the bag. I put it in the bushes. I was trembling with fear – one of the men had cut off the body’s hands from the shoulders – I threw the arms in the bushes.
“One of the men said I should drag the body into the bushes... I grabbed him by the ankles and pulled it into the bushes. The guy threatened me and ordered me... I was covered in blood on my clothes and my hands. After I dragged the body... then I heard some steps and they just left.”
Nicolescu said he left Cork days after the remains of Mr Dunne were found and caught a bus to Belfast and then went on to Edinburgh before flying home to Romania as he was afraid he could “go to jail for something I did not do” but the jury did not believe him and convicted him of the murder.
In a statement on behalf of the Dunne family read outside court after the sentencing hearing, Mr Dunne’s niece, Rosaleen Herlihy, surrounded by family, thanked the gardaí, the prosecution legal team and the jury for their work as she recalled her uncle with fondness and affection.
“Frankie was a father, grandfather, brother, uncle, nephew and friend to many. He lost a lot in his life due to alcohol dependence. The one thing he never lost was his family’s love and support. Every member of his family and large circle of friends has held him, fed him or sometimes just sat with him while he sang his rebel songs, which he loved. He was simply Frankie – a kind and gentle man.
“He had another family that he loved – his friends living in homeless shelters or on the streets of Cork. They were their own community – one without their own front door or sometimes even a mattress to lay down on, out of the cold.
“As Frankie’s family, who miss him every day, we hope that no one else has to suffer the horrendous nightmare of what Frankie endured in the final hours of his life.”
