A woman pleaded for her life after being stabbed four times in the neck by a stranger she met on an isolated pathway last July. Cork Circuit Criminal Court heard yesterday that Eric Lonergan, from the Caravan Park, Buttevant, Co Cork, had smoked two "reefers" before meeting Ms Elaine O'Mahony at the Bull Walk, near Mallow town, as she walked home from a friend's house last July 18th at around 8 p.m.
After knifing her four times in the neck as she lay on the ground, Lonergan (25), told her he would have to kill her. In a statement to gardai, read out in court, Ms O'Mahony said: "He turned me over on my front. I was pinned to the ground. I felt something digging into my neck. He told me to get up and there was blood coming from my neck. He pushed me down on nettles on my back. He put his boot on the right side of my neck. He stood up and looked up and down the pathway. I was pleading with him, `do not kill me, you do not want to kill me' ."
Ms O'Mahony said Lonergan replied so matter of factly to her that he would have to kill her now, she believed he was going to do it. Lonergan pulled up her shirt and squeezed her breast hurting her. She was bleeding badly and he started wiping blood from his hands with leaves which he threw at her. He pulled her tee shirt up and started wiping her face. He asked her where she lived and after some hesitation she told him. She asked him if she could get up and told him to run for his life. He told her not to leave for a while and then left.
With blood covering her neck, hair and shirt Ms O'Mahony managed to make her way to the main road, where people came to her aid and took her to hospital.
Mr Dermot Coakley, a specialist in the hospital, said there were four neck wounds, the main one just missed the main artery, which if severed would have resulted in Ms O'Mahony's death in minutes. She was lucky to be alive.
Lonergan admitted his guilt when questioned by gardai the following day at his home. Judge Patrick Moran, in sentencing Lonergan to five years in prison, said he subjected Ms O'Mahony to an appalling attack. The report from the hospital indicated that she was lucky to be alive. "You nearly killed her and you are lucky not to be facing a charge of murder," he said.