An elderly Kerry man murdered his brother and then dumped his body in a well, a prosecution lawyer claimed yesterday as he opened the State's case in a murder trial before a jury in the Central Criminal Court.
Prosecution counsel Mr John Edwards SC told the jury that Mr Paddy Daly disappeared nine days after he sent a solicitor's letter to his brother, Sean, asking him to stop interfering in his affairs.
When he was arraigned, Mr Sean Daly (74) pleaded not guilty to the murder of his brother Patrick Daly (69) at a farm in Dooneen, Kilcummin, Killarney, Co Kerry, on January 18th, 1996.
Mr Edwards, who appeared for the prosecution with Mr Gregory Murphy SC, said Mr Paddy Daly went missing on January 18th. On Saturday, January 20th, two neighbours reported the matter to gardai, and then his brother, the accused, also rang them.
Initial Garda searches turned up nothing, but on January 20th a well on the farm attracted the attention of one garda, who noticed that under its cement cap cover it was filled to the brim with sand. The garda put his boot into the sand, making an impression about four inches deep.
The following day a party comprising gardai and local civil defence volunteers carried out an extensive search of the farm. In the course of this Sgt Michael O'Donovan noticed the sand did not quite reach to the top of the well and appeared to have been raked.
He returned to the station to carry out certain inquiries, Mr Edwards said. The sergeant had become suspicious. On Tuesday, January 23rd, gardai returned to the farm to examine the well.
They found the sand was wet and "flush with the top of the well". Mr Edwards alleged that the accused came up to the well at this point and stuck an iron bar down into the sand, saying there was nothing down there except stones and that Paddy had had it filled in a few weeks previously.
When the well was excavated, gardai found a large quantity of black plastic under layers of sand. "When the plastic was removed it was possible to see green Wellingtons and a human leg sticking out from the water at the bottom of the well," Mr Edwards said. The local fire brigade removed the body of Mr Paddy Daly from the base of the well.
A post-mortem examination revealed that he had died from multiple injuries to the head and body which could have been caused by either a blunt weapon or a shod foot.
Mr John Edwards SC said that Paddy Daly, a bachelor, owned the 105-acre farm five miles north of Killarney but operated it "in a kind of partnership with his brother, the accused", sharing the workload and the profits with him. Two of Sean Daly's sons also worked on the farm.
Sean and Paddy Daly had not been getting on particularly well, Mr Edwards said. There were rows and arguments between them, including rows concerning the sale of animals.
He said that in early January 1996, Mr Paddy Daly went to his solicitor, who wrote a letter to the accused on foot of his client's instructions.
The solicitor wrote that he was acting on behalf of Paddy, "who instructs us that you interfere in his affairs". This was causing Paddy distress, he wrote, asking Sean Daly to be "good enough to know that your brother wishes to organise his own affairs".
Sean Daly was deeply upset, Mr Edwards said. "He was hurt, he was annoyed about this letter." Nine days later Paddy Daly disappeared, the prosecution said.
In evidence, Mr Tom Kelleher, a bachelor farmer from Leamn aguilla, near Kilcummin, said he last saw the deceased on the Wednesday preceding the discovery of his body.
He said he had known Paddy Daly for around 30 years, and was very friendly with him. He would see him three nights a week, on and off, he said. Paddy Daly would visit him at his house 21/2 miles from the Daly farm, or he would go to Paddy Daly's house, maybe once a fortnight.
When he saw him on the Wednesday night, Paddy was irritated, Mr Kelleher said, but he did not say why.
The court heard that Paddy Daly did not turn up at Mr Kelleher's house on January 19th. "He was supposed to call to me on the Friday morning to load some cattle for the mart," Mr Kelleher explained.
When Paddy Daly did not turn up, his neighbour thought he was sick. That evening, when he was driving cattle in from the field, he met Sean Daly with his son, Eugene.
"He asked me if Paddy was in my house," Mr Kelleher said. "I told him he wasn't, and he said he was gone."
The witness said the accused had told him that Eugene had been up to Paddy's house that morning and saw that the small front gate was open and noticed footprints turning to the right.
"I said he couldn't be gone too far away," Mr Kelleher recalled. "He said he was stone mad and gone away."
Asked what else the accused had said, Mr Kelleher said: "He told me he [Paddy] was very bad, like."
Later, after a number of brief interruptions during legal argument in the absence of the jury, the witness said that Sean Daly told him that himself and Eugene had cleaned up Paddy's house because it was dirty, with dog droppings all over it.
"He said the house was locked and he had to force his way in," Mr Kelleher told Mr Edwards. He said that Sean had keys to the front door but told him he had forced a door leading into Paddy's bedroom.
"When he forced the bedroom he found his bed dressed and he hadn't slept in it that night," the witness said.
He told Mr Edwards that at Sean's behest, he and Sean's son, Jim, searched along the river bank and around a lime kiln on the farm the following day.
When they found nothing, the witness asked Sean Daly what about reporting him missing. "He told me he was stone mad and gone away and he'd left all the lights on in the house and he might come back," he said.
Mr Kelleher told the court that later he went into Killarney and reported Paddy Daly's disappearance to gardai.
The trial continues before a jury and Mr Justice Barr.