A youth strangled a Cork teenager after having sex with her on waste ground, the Central Criminal Court heard yesterday.
"I didn't mean to do it, I just lost it," Mr Jonathan Kepple later told gardai.
Mr Kepple (19), of Bence House, Deptford, London, has pleaded not guilty to murdering Ms Rachel Sandyman (17) near Nutley Road, Mahon, Cork city, on February 5th, 2000. He has agreed that he killed Ms Sandyman and that he is guilty of manslaughter.
Opening the prosecution case, Mr Denis Vaughan Buckley SC warned the jury not to let their emotions decide the case.
He said Mr Kepple met Ms Sandyman near a Chinese restaurant after her boyfriend went home. They began walking together and Ms Sandyman intended to go to the house of her friend, Ms Alice O'Connor. Ms Sandyman and Mr Kepple began kissing and later had sex on waste ground. Mr Kepple later punched Ms Sandyman a number of times and strangled her. He covered her body with bushes and went to the house of his cousin, Mr Maurice Kepple.
Maurice noticed blood on Mr Kepple's hands and face and asked him what happened. Mr Kepple told his cousin he got in a fight with another man.
He later admitted that he had killed Ms Sandyman and took his cousin to the body. Maurice went to gardai at 4 p.m. that day and told them about the killing.
Mr Vaughan-Buckley said gardai arrested Mr Kepple and asked him to identify a woman's body discovered on waste ground earlier that day. Mr Kepple started crying and said it was Ms Sandyman. "I just lost it. I had two ecstasy tablets and a lot of drink," he told gardai.
Mr Vaughan Buckley read from a written statement Mr Kepple made to gardai in which he said Ms Sandyman accused him of being a bad father to his children in England. They argued for about 10 minutes and she slapped him. "Rachel hit me. I snapped. I lost my temper," he said.
Mr Kepple admitted punching Ms Sandyman four times in the nose. He said he then put both hands around her neck and strangled her until she stopped screaming. A friend of Ms Sandyman's, Ms Sinead Holbrook, broke down in the witness box as she said she had walked ahead of Ms Sandyman to Ms O'Connor's house on the night of the killing. She waited for Ms Sandyman to arrive and later went down the road, where she met her friend with a young man.
He told her his name was Jonathan Kepple and he didn't appear to be drunk or on drugs. Ms Sandyman told Ms Holbrook that she would go to Ms O'Connor's house in a few moments but she never arrived.
The trial continues before Mr Justice O'Neill and a jury of seven men and five women.