Double murder accused Ruth Lawrence and her boyfriend acted as “a unit and a tag team” to “lure” a drug dealer to their home to murder him in a “highly calculated” crime, a prosecution barrister has told a jury.
The trial has heard that Ms Lawrence was extradited from South Africa to face trial in 2023, nearly a decade after the bodies of Anthony Keegan (33) and Eoin O’Connor (32) were found on a lake island in the midlands.
Michael O’Higgins SC, for the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), told the trial the two men’s bodies were found “bound in rope, tape and covered in tarpaulin” on Inchicup Island on Lough Sheelin.
Ms Lawrence (46), who is originally from Clontarf, in Dublin, but with an address at Patricks Cottage, Ross, Mountnugent, in Co Meath, has pleaded not guilty to murdering Mr Keegan and Mr O’Connor at an unknown location in the State on a date between April 22nd, 2014, and May 26th, 2014, both dates inclusive.
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Mr O’Higgins, on Monday gave his closing speech in the Central Criminal Court trial, submitting that the “trail very quickly” led back to Ms Lawrence and her South African boyfriend Neville van der Westhuizen, who enjoyed a “symbiotic relationship”.
Counsel said Ms Lawrence had shot Mr O’Connor in the stomach intending to kill him but she had not acted alone and her boyfriend had “finished him off”. He described the accused’s familiarity and comfort of “posturing with a gun” as “sinister”.
Addressing the jury, Mr O’Higgins with Jane Horgan-Jones BL, prosecuting, described the case as “highly-detailed”, where it was argued that drug dealer Mr O’Connor was “lured” to Patricks Cottage for the purpose of murdering him.
Mr O’Higgins said it was unclear on the evidence whether Ms Lawrence and Mr van der Westhuizen were aware Mr Keegan was going to be with Mr O’Connor on April 22nd, however “a plan was fine-tuned and he was murdered too”.
Counsel said it was the prosecution’s case Ms Lawrence shot Mr O’Connor in the stomach intending to kill him. “She was not acting alone,” counsel said. Mr O’Higgins said Mr van der Westhuizen, who was also armed, was described by one of the witnesses as having finished Mr O’Connor off.
Mr O’Higgins said it appeared Mr van der Westhuizen “grappled” with Mr O’Connor, who was then shot in the head. He said the sequence of the two murders was unclear and it was far more likely that Mr Keegan was probably killed first when he was shot in the back of the head.
The trial continues on Tuesday before Mr Justice Tony Hunt and a jury of four men and eight women.
In his opening address, Mr O’Higgins said the evidence will be that Mr O’Connor sold drugs to Mr van der Westhuizen, who owed the deceased man in the region of €70,000.
