Santina Cawley accused could not account for toddler’s blood on pyjamas

A woman accused of the murder of a two-year-old told gardaí she could not account for how the toddler’s blood was on a pair of her own pyjama bottoms found in the bedroom of the apartment where the child was found unconscious.

Karen Harrington (38) denied she had changed her pyjama pants sometime during the night when Santina Cawley suffered catastrophic injuries, saying she could offer no explanation for how blood found on one of the garment’s legs matched that of the child.

Ms Harrington of Lakelands Crescent, Mahon, Cork has denied the murder of Santina at her apartment at Elderwood Park, Boreenamanna Road, on July 5th 2019.

She was in a relationship with Santina’s father, Michael Cawley.

On Tuesday, the jury of seven men and four women at the Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork were shown a recording of a garda interview with Ms Harrington.

In the interview, conducted following her arrest on July 9th for questioning about Santina’s murder, jurors heard Det Garda David Noonan ask Ms Harrington if she knew whose blood was found on a pair of adult black flowery pyjama leggings which had been identified as belonging to her.

“Don’t tell me it’s Santina’s blood ... I can’t explain it, I can’t explain it,” said Ms Harrington when Det Garda Noonan put it to her that a witness, Aoife Niamh McGaley, had said she had seen Ms Harrington wearing the same pyjama bottoms when she called to the apartment in the early hours.

‘I have no answers’

Det Garda Noonan explained to Ms Harrington that he was simply following the evidence and he asked again how Santina’s blood could have ended up on the leggings if, as Ms Harrington claimed, she had no recollection of wearing them or changing out of them on the night in question.

“I have no answers, I honestly have no answers, it’s frightening,” said Ms Harrington. Det Garda Noonan said she must have been wearing the black pyjama leggings in the kitchen when she broke a glass and cut her foot as her own blood was on one leg of the pyjamas contained her own blood.

Ms Harrington agreed it was “possible” she could have been wearing the black leggings that night but she again stressed she had no recollection of changing them as gardaí alleged. She was wearing different green leggings when she later left the apartment after Santina’s body was found.

The trial had earlier heard Ms Harrington had returned to the apartment on her own after a row with Mr Cawley at the apartment of a friend, Martina Higgins. Mr Cawley returned to Ms Harrington’s apartment with Santina sometime after 3am on the morning of July 5th.

On Tuesday, during the playing of the recorded interview, it emerged Mr Cawley spent just over four minutes in the apartment when he left Santina in Ms Harrington’s care. After they had an argument, he left the apartment sometime after 3am to look for his cousin in Cork city centre.

The jury also heard Mr Cawley was in the apartment for just 49 seconds when he returned after 5am to discover Santina unresponsive. He handed the child to Ms Harrington and asked what she had done to her, and she handed the child back and ran off. He left the apartment to get help.

Jurors saw Ms Harrington crying at various times during the 150-minute-long interview with Det Garda Noonan and Det Garda Brian Maher. At one point, Det Garda Noonan noticed she was smiling at one of his questions and he asked her why.

He continued: “Santina Cawley can’t smile. Santina Cawley is dead. I don’t imagine her family are smiling. It’s unfair to that family that they don’t know what happened their daughter, their niece, their granddaughter. A reasonable explanation is all they want.”

Ms Harrington said she would “love to be able to give one” but she had no recollection of what happened on the night. She told gardaí Santina was “hysterical”. She had no recollection of anything else other than what she had told them already, she added.

Asked again by Det Garda Noonan about the evidence from the scene with Santina’s hair on a couch, blood stains on the floor and Santina’s blood on the leggings she was seen wearing, Ms Harrington said: “It looks terrible, it looks very bad, it looks bad, I don’t know, it all looks crazy, like.”

But Ms Harrington again re-iterated her denial that she injured or killed Santina. “I did not cause any injury to Santina. I did not cause any injury to anyone. I know 100 per cent that I would not hurt any child,” she said.

Consistent denial

Earlier, Insp David Callaghan - who supervised the interviews with Ms Harrington - confirmed to defence counsel Brendan Grehan SC in cross examination that Ms Harrington had no history of violence and her position throughout the five interviews with gardaí had not changed.

Mr Grehan put it to Insp Callaghan that Ms Harrington consistently across all five garda interviews denied she had caused the injuries to Santina and Insp Callaghan said the fifth interview with Det Garda Noonan and Det Garda Maher had elicited some new and additional information.

But Insp Callaghan agreed with Mr Grehan’s assertion Ms Harrington was consistent in saying she could not remember what happened and in denying harming Santina.

“She acknowledged the evidence was pointing mainly at her but she did not budge from her position.”

Earlier, the court heard Ms Harrington told Det Garda Noonan and Det Garda Maher that she fell asleep after putting Santina to sleep on a duvet on the floor of her apartment and had no recollection of anything until Mr Cawley returned almost two hours later.

“It is 100 per cent true, I did fall asleep,” Ms Harrington told gardaí during an interview following her arrest.

Det Garda Noonan put it to Ms Harrington that witnesses Dylan Olney, Martin McSweeney, Philip Slyne and Brian Luttrell all heard a woman roaring and shouting for around 20 minutes as a sliding door was opened and slammed up to 30 times.

Gardaí played a recording of the door slamming shut repeatedly made by Mr Luttrell and Ms Harrington agreed she had slammed and opened the door three times and that she had spoken to Mr Olney, who threatened to call the gardaí, and had spoken to another witness, Ms McGaley.

But she insisted that she fell asleep on the couch after putting Santina on the duvet in the floor and watching her fall asleep and she had no recollection of what happened after that, and she denied taunting Santina or hurting her or murdering her.

“I don’t know what happened – I have no recollection of what happened, I wouldn’t harm a child, I wouldn’t, like,” she said.

‘I went mad’

On Tuesday, the tenth day of the trial, the jury and Mr Justice Michael MacGrath were shown a video recording of the final garda interview with Ms Harrington, when gardaí showed her photos of the crime scene at her apartment.

Ms Harrington broke down several times during the highly emotional interview and said she was going to get sick when gardaí showed her photos of clumps of Santina’s hair found on a coach and photographs of blood stains around the kitchen area of the duplex apartment.

“I see Santina’s hair, the same colour hair on the sofa in my living room – it looks like the colour of her hair, auburn,“ said Ms Harrington, before the two gardaí showed her a photo of a blanket with blood stains found on the floor in her living room.

“Santina was wrapped in it by me in the end – I put her in the blanket at one or two stages, Michael put her in the blanket the first time … I was asleep and she was in the blanket when I woke up,” she said, adding that she took off Santina’s top and leggings, but not her nappy, because she was roasting.

Gardaí also showed Ms Harrington a photograph of an earring found on the floor which matched an earring found in one of Santina’s ear lobes. They also asked her about the blood stains on the floor and she said it was probably her own blood as she cut her foot when a glass broke.

She agreed Santina was alive after Mr Cawley left the apartment, and that she was the only person in the apartment when Santina was last alive, but she again re-iterated she had no recollection of what happened that led to the child sustaining extensive and fatal injuries.

“I know (it needs an explanation and Santina deserves an explanation) – there’s nothing coming to my mind at all,” said Ms Harrington, adding she could not explain why her version of what happened differed so much from the evidence from the scene presented to her by gardaí.

Det Garda Noonan asked Ms Harrington, what was all the evidence from the scene saying about what happened that night and breaking down and crying, Ms Harrington replied: “This all says to me that I went mad … this is all looking like me, the evidence is all on me.”

The case continues.