A man has been sentenced at the Central Criminal Court in Cork to life imprisonment for murdering his friend by stabbing him 10 times in the neck. Olivia Kelleherreports.
Keith Nagle (22), Churchfield Green, Cork, went on trial this week for the murder of Gerard O'Mahony (22), Wellington Road, Cork, in April 2006. He denied murder but admitted manslaughter.
Mr O'Mahony's mother Eleanor yesterday delivered an emotional victim impact statement.
"I never had any trouble with him. I attended parent-teacher meetings and they all spoke highly of him. His employer thought there was no one like him.
"I go to the grave every day. I often take my grandson with me and he thinks it is a garden. I don't know what I am going to do when I have to tell him. My Ger was a happy-go-lucky lad. I miss him an awful lot. He was very hard-working and ambitious."
Mrs O'Mahony said she was dreading heading into the holiday season without her son.
The jury of six men and five women returned a guilty verdict shortly before 4pm yesterday.
The jury was told during the trial that Mr O'Mahony was discovered lying in a pool of blood at his Cork flat. Gardaí could find no sign of a struggle.
Tom Creed, SC, prosecuting, said that Nagle attacked Mr O'Mahony from behind after they had been drinking in the Wellington Road flat.
Defence psychiatrist Dr Brian McCaffrey called Nagle a "walking psychological time bomb". Dr McCaffrey said Nagle was sexually assaulted by a male babysitter when he was just four.
The assault was still having an impact on Nagle's mental state, he said. He claimed Nagle had been dangerous since he was 11, when he brandished a knife in front of his mother and confronted his father with a sword.
Dr Derla Duffy, a psychiatrist called by the prosecution, said Nagle did not suffer from a medical disease and was fully responsible for his actions.
The court also heard from Nagle's mother, Geraldine Houlihan, who said her former husband John Nagle would slap his son across the head with his dinner plate if he refused to eat his dinner. The court heard Nagle had a deeply troubled childhood.
However, Ms Houlihan said her son Keith and the late Gerard O'Mahony were best friends.
Mr Justice Paul Carney imposed the mandatory life sentence on Nagle.
He said the case had been distressing for everybody and commended the jurors for their attention throughout the course of the trial. The trial began last Tuesday.