A 47-year-old Liverpool man has been found guilty of the manslaughter of his fiancée’s father 23 years ago, but has been cleared of his murder.
Colin Pinder pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to the manslaughter of 43-year-old Bernard Brian McGrath, at the victim’s home in Lower Coole, Westmeath between March 10th and April 18th, 1987.
Mr McGrath’s death went undetected until 1993, when gardaí dug up his burnt and fragmented bones from his back garden.
They had been informed by the victim’s daughter, Veronica McGrath, who was engaged to Pinder at the time of the killing. They later married.
The eight men and three women of the jury reached their unanimous verdict this afternoon after four hours and five minutes deliberating on the 26th day of the cold-case murder trial at the Central Criminal Court.
They will resume deliberations on Monday in the case of Pinder’s co-accused; the victim’s wife, 61-year-old Vera McGrath, who has pleaded not guilty to murdering her husband.
Pinder admitted his part in the killing when the investigation began six years after Mr McGrath’s death.
Pinder told detectives that he hit McGrath hard after he called him a ni**er. He said McGrath hit his head against the kitchen range as he fell.
His barrister, Conor Devally SC, maintained McGrath’s racism that night amounted to provocation and caused his client to act out of character.
Pinder had also been led to believe that McGrath was violent to his family, he said.
“Colin Pinder knows he acted in reaction, not just to Mr McGrath, but to all that he had been made to think,” he said in his closing speech last week.
“Colin Pinder couldn’t cope with what he’d done. He wants it off his chest. He has no life,” said Mr Devally.
The jury told Mr Justice John Edwards at 4pm that it had reached a verdict on one of the defendants.
The judge remanded Pinder in custody for the remainder of the trial, after which he will sentence him.
The jury will return to the court on Monday to deliberate on the charge against Mrs McGrath.