A MAN charged with murdering a retired barman in Cork city admitted to gardaí that he punched the man twice but did not know he had died until gardaí called to his house several days later.
Paul Murphy (25), Knocknaheeny, Cork city, denies the murder of Donal Manley (62) at Mr Manley’s home in High Street, Cork, between October 10th and October 12th 2008. Mr Murphy also denies assault causing serious harm and to stealing a number of items including a red jacket, a baseball cap, an umbrella, a gold watch, a flat-screen TV and a Chorus black box belonging to Mr Manley.
At the Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork yesterday, the jury heard of Garda interviews with Mr Murphy following his arrest and was shown video of the interview in which Mr Murphy admitted punching Mr Manley twice.
Mr Murphy said he had been drinking and taking prescription drugs all that week. On the night of October 9th, 2008, he had been drinking with some men at the bottom of Patrick’s Hill in Cork, but he had no recollection of meeting Mr Manley.
He recalled being in a strange house but he had no recollection of how he got there, although he could remember a man offering him vodka or rum. He took a glass of rum and fell asleep sitting on a sofa, he told gardaí.
“When I woke up, a man was trying to put his hand down by pants. I pushed his hand away but I was still fairly out of it – he put his hand to the front of my trousers again – I stood up, the man stood up. I said ‘What the f**k do you think you are doing?’,” Mr Murphy told gardaí.
“I gave him a dig, he swung back but missed and his body kind of turned and I gave him a dig in the back of the head and that’s when he fell,” said Mr Murphy. There was another man asleep in a chair who woke up and asked what happened before going back to sleep.
Mr Murphy said he noticed the man he punched had not got up but he did not notice any blood. He said to himself: “F**k that p***k over what he had done to me,” and he took a television and left, although he couldn’t remember leaving the house.
“I am sincerely sorry for what I’ve done and I am sorry for his family as well. I did not intend hurting that person,” said Mr Murphy, adding later in an interview with gardaí: “I want to apologise sincerely for it if what I did was the cause of his death”.
Mr Murphy told gardaí he did not know how he got home to his flat on Dominic Street with the TV but he told his girlfriend, Michelle Wall, and his friend, Chris O’Neill, that he had robbed a house and hit a man. “I didn’t know I was after killing the person.”
He heard radio reports about gardaí investigating the death of a man in High Street but he did not realise it was the house he had been in because he did not know where he was at the time of the incident. He only made the connection when gardaí called to the house.
“I realised the situation. I got a bag of cocaine to try and drown my sorrows and make the pain go away,” he told gardaí. The case continues.