THE JURY in the trial of the Sligo man accused of murdering 14-year-old Melissa Mahon has heard that she took a pregnancy test which was positive before she went missing.
Two teenage girls gave evidence via video link on the 12th day of the Central Criminal Court trial of Ronald McManus. They said they were with Melissa Mahon in the toilets of a McDonald’s when she took the test. Both girls told the court it was positive.
Mr McManus (44), also known as Ronnie Dunbar, Rathbraughan Park, Sligo, has pleaded not guilty to murdering the schoolgirl in September 2006. He also denies threatening to kill one of his daughters, Samantha Conroy.
A 17-year-old girl, who cannot be named, told Seán Gillane, prosecuting, that some time before Melissa went missing, they were in Sligo town with the other witness. She said Melissa bought a pregnancy test in Tesco and took the test in the toilets of McDonald’s. The witness said she saw the stick and it was positive.
The girl said Melissa was “kind of happy, kind of delighted in a way”.
Under cross-examination by Brendan Grehan, defending, the girl said she could not remember when the test had taken place. She also agreed that Melissa was seeing a “lad from Caltra”. She agreed that Melissa had told her that the accused was like a father to her.
Melissa Mahon went missing in Sligo from the care of the Health Service Executive on September 14th, 2006. Her remains were found on the shore of Lough Gill in February 2008.
The second witness told the court that she was also present when Melissa took the pregnancy test and said “as far as I can remember the first stick came up positive”.
Mr McManus’s youngest daughter yesterday completed her evidence. The 16-year-old, who cannot be named, was cross-examined by Mr Grehan in relation to evidence she gave at the end of proceedings on Wednesday about her father putting his hands around Melissa’s neck and choking her.
Mr Grehan said that she had never mentioned this detail before in any statement or in her direct evidence in court. She replied “there are things you remember afterwards if you try hard . . . I remember things every day of the week”.
The girl denied Mr Grehan’s suggestion that she was making her evidence up as she went along. She said she could not explain how she had previously left this information out.
She agreed that she was taken into care in October 2007 and had had only telephone contact with her father since then. She said she never told her social workers what had happened to Melissa.
She agreed that she rang Sligo radio stations to play requests for her father after she went into care.
Mr Grehan put a number of text messages to the girl which she accepted that she had sent to her father. In one message sent in February 2008 she wrote, “I’d rather me than you. You haven’t done anything wrong. I’m lost without you.”
She told the court: “Can I just say I was 15 and brainwashed.”
The trial continues before Mr Justice Barry White and a jury of six men and six women. It is expected to continue for another two weeks.