A woman has told a murder trial that she tried to intervene while her boyfriend was being stabbed to death by two men.
Sharon Kelly was giving evidence in the trial of two men accused of murdering 26-year-old Shane Murphy at The Grove, Pallasgreen, Co Limerick, on April 30th, 2015. Dylan Hayes (22) of The Crescent, Kilteragh, Dooradoyle, Co Limerick and Ger Hogan (33) of Raheen Square, Ballinacurra Weston, Co Limerick, have pleaded not guilty.
Ms Kelly told prosecuting counsel Paul Burns SC at the Central Criminal Court that she and Mr Murphy had been boyfriend and girlfriend for about three months by the end of April 2015. On the day Mr Murphy died, Ms Kelly and Mr Murphy were at her home with two females – Ailish Flood and Jodie Byrnes – and one of the accused, Ger Hogan.
Ms Flood and Ms Byrnes went to a local shop to get drink and came back with cider and beer. At that point, Ms Kelly, who was not drinking, said the atmosphere in the house was “fine”, but when Ms Byrnes told her that Dylan Hayes was on his way over, Ms Kelly told her he would not be allowed in.
She said Mr Hayes knocked on the door and entered with another man, whom she later found out was named Graham Kelly. The witness noticed that Mr Hayes had a gun in his hand, but she did not know if it was real or a replica.
Ms Kelly told the court she was “very unhappy” about Mr Hayes being in the house. “I told them to get out,” she said, but Mr Hayes said he wanted to speak to Jodie Byrnes and that he wanted to “sort out” a man named Wayne.
Drunk neighbour
Ms Kelly had already given evidence that a neighbour named Wayne had arrived at the house the previous night and got into bed with Jodie Byrnes while she slept. Ms Kelly said that the neighbour was drunk and didn’t know what he was doing and left when told to go.
She said that normally her boyfriend and Mr Hogan got on “like a house on fire”, but when Mr Hayes arrived the atmosphere changed.
“They were slagging each other off,” she said, before she intervened and called Mr Hayes a “junkie”.
“Dylan [Hayes] headbutted me,” she said. Then Mr Murphy told Mr Hayes to “cop on and have a bit of respect”, before telling him to leave.
She said Ger Hogan was “egging Dylan on”, telling him that Mr Murphy had called him a junkie.
“I said to Shane, “I want them to leave,” so he stood up to tell them to go once and for all, but as far as I can remember that is when he got stabbed first.”
She said she tried to get in between her boyfriend and the two men but she was pushed out of the way. “They were both stabbing him,” she said. She said Mr Hayes was using a screwdriver while Mr Hogan used a knife. She said it felt like a lifetime but the attack probably lasted only about four or five minutes.
By the end her boyfriend was on the floor covered in blood. She wrapped him in a blanket, but then Mr Hayes and Mr Hogan came back and started stabbing him again, she said, saying “give it to him, give it to him”.
“I tried to stop them,” she said. “I tried kicking and screaming to try and stop them.”
She said she got stabbed multiple times in her hands and back. As the attack happened, Jodie Byrnes called the emergency services. When Mr Hogan and Mr Hayes left the scene, Ms Kelly said, they tried to instruct her on how to give CPR and to stem the flow of blood.
At one point, she said Ger Hogan came back again and said: “Ah, he’ll be all right.”
By the time the ambulance and gardaí arrived, “Shane was gone,” she said.
Ms Kelly will return to giving evidence in front of Justice Patrick McCarthy and a jury of five women and seven men at the Central Criminal Court on Wednesday.