A WOMAN has told the trial of two brothers charged with the murder of a 30-year-old Englishman in Co Kerry how she went into her daughter’s bedroom and saw one of the accused raising his hand up and down over the victim and stabbing him.
Gerard O’Riordan (28) and Shane O’Riordan (19), from Arbutus Grove, Killarney, both deny the murder of James Brazier at a house in Pinewood Estate in Killarney in the early hours of April 15th, 2007.
Yesterday the woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told the Central Criminal Court in Cork how she was awoken at about 2am on April 15th, 2007, by a scream coming from the bedroom of her daughter who was then 15.
“I heard some noise, some screaming – I went into my daughter’s room – I seen Shane . . . on top of the bed and all I saw was his hand going up and down, up and down, stabbing Jimmy,” said the woman, adding she never saw any knife. The woman said she went back into her own room for a moment; when she returned to her daughter’s room, she saw Shane O’Riordan by the side of the bed and Gerard O’Riordan in a corner.
Gerard O’Riordan was “kicking and hitting” Mr Brazier who was bleeding heavily and lying on the floor by the side of the bed and she went over to him to try and cradle him and protect him.
“I went over to Jimmy, I had Jimmy in my arms . . . I just pleaded with them to stop . . . Gerard turned around and there was a chair in the room, he tried to hit Jimmy with the chair. I tried to block the chair and I got thumped a small bit . . . ,” she said.
The woman said Shane O’Riordan was standing at the end of the bed “as white as a sheet”.
She heard him say to her daughter, with whom he had been going out for eight months until they had split up earlier that week, something like “It didn’t take you long”. She said both men then left the bedroom and went out of the house, but that Gerard O’Riordan returned briefly and told her to call an ambulance and to cover Mr Brazier’s wounds with clothes.
The woman had earlier told the court she had been in Killarney town earlier that day drinking with Mr Brazier and they had been joined by her daughter but she had come home early about 6-7pm and her daughter had returned home later with Mr Brazier.
Cross-examined by Tom Creed for Gerard O’Riordan, the woman said she could not explain the discrepancy between her evidence in the witness box and a statement she had made to gardaí on April 16th, 2007, in which she said they all returned home together.
“I can’t recall because it’s too long ago and my memory is not very good,” said the woman.
Later, the woman’s daughter, now aged 17, told how she had returned home with Mr Brazier and gone to sleep under the covers on her bed with Mr Brazier sleeping over the covers when she was suddenly awoken by a scream.
“I just woke up and Jimmy was on the floor and Gerard was hitting him – he was hitting him with his hands . . . There was blood everywhere – Shane was at the end of the bed, I didn’t see him doing anything,” she said.
The case continues.