A 45-year-old man has been jailed for life after he was convicted by a jury of the murder of a woman found with more than 120 injuries at his flat in Cork last year.
Cathal O'Sullivan, a native of Charleville, had denied the murder of Nicola Collins (38) at his rented upstairs flat on Popham's Road in Farranree on March 27th, 2017.
The jury of nine men and three women at the Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork took just under four hours to find him guilty of the charge.
Ms Justice Eileen Creedon sentenced O’Sullivan to the mandatory term of life in prison.
During the trial, the jury heard evidence from Assistant Pathologist, Dr Margaret Bolster that Ms Collins had 125 separate bruises and lacerations which extended from her scalp down to her ankles as well as a displaced fracture of her lower jaw.
She said Ms Collins had extensive bruising all over her body including behind her ears, to her scalp, to both eyes, along both arms and wrists, on her thighs and shins as well as on her neck, shoulders, left breast and stomach and breast bone though the last named could have been due to CPR by paramedics.
She also had bleeding from both nostrils and cuts to her lip and to her forehead. She had two broken front teeth, a bleed into her left eye and from her left ear and a displaced fracture of her lower jaw, as well as grazes to her cheeks and scratches on her neck and under her jaw.
Blood clot
Dr Bolster said she found evidence of serious subdural haemorrhage or bleeding under the skull.
She said she also found evidence of partial manual strangulation with bruising and scratch marks on Ms Collins’ neck. These may have been either offensive wounds, caused by someone trying to strangle her, or defensive wounds caused by her trying to free herself. She said asphyxia did not cause her death.
Dr Bolster said she found the cause of death was brain swelling and traumatic subdural haemorrhage with diffuse axonal injury or injury to the nerve endings in the brain due to blunt force trauma to the head. “It was brain trauma which led to her death”, she said.
Neuropathologist, Dr Michael Janssen said the axonal injuries or injuries to the nerve endings in Ms Collins’ brain could not have resulted from a fall but could only have been caused by blows to her head.
Taxi
The jury heard evidence that Ms Collins had caught a taxi to O’Sullivan’s flat on March 23rd and had no visible sign of injury going into the apartment.
She spent the next four days with O’Sullivan, emerging to go to a local off-licence at 11.24am on March 24th, which was when she was last seen alive.
The jury heard Garda memos of interview with O’Sullivan in which he said Ms Collins was a troubled individual. He said in the days before she died she tried to harm herself in his flat when she got out a knife and went to drag it across her hand. He tried to disarm her, he said, and kicked the knife under the bed.
He also told gardaí he spent 30 minutes trying to resuscitate her at one point and he used his legs to try and pump her chest to get her breathing again before ringing 999 at 3.05am on March 27th.
O’Sullivan took the stand and said he first met Ms Collins when they were both doing a course entitled Effective Communication for Better Relationships, in October 2015. They became friends and then in January 2016, they were intimate. They would break up but they would always meet up again, he said.
He said Ms Collins had a lot of issues in her life and that he suffered from social phobia for which he was on prescribed medication. They liked being around each other and he would help her in any way that he could, he said, and she helped him and that was the basis of their relationship.
He said Ms Collins had drink and suicide issues but he was doing his best to help her. While they did not have arguments over those few days, she did lash out at him in momentary outbursts, he said. He denied deliberately causing any of the 125 bruises and lacerations found on her.
Paramedics
He said that many bruises resulted from paramedics continuing with CPR for more than 25 minutes after he called them. An abrasion on her face was consistent with paramedics dragging her off the bed and along the floor before beginning CPR, he claimed.
He also suggested that a swelling on Ms Collins’ face may have been caused by him slapping her twice as he tried to rouse her when performing CPR. This had happened after he woke up to find her unconscious, he said. The fracture to her jaw happened when she fell against the side of the bed after he was trying to lift her up.
He said the subdural haemorrhage identified by Dr Bolster as proving fatal occurred when she slipped in the bathroom while having a shower and hit her head off a bathtap. He argued that the evidence did not support Dr Bolster’s assertion that it came from an assault.
O’Sullivan, who said he had studied neuroscience in UCC, also disagreed with Dr Janssen’s assertion the axonal injuries could only have been caused by a blow to the head. He said they stemmed instead from an underlying brain disorder called Wernicke Korsakoff Syndrome caused by a B1 vitamin deficiency.
O’Sullivan said he may have caused bruising to Ms Collins’ face when he was trying to hold her off from hitting him and his arm rebounded against her, but he denied any deliberate assaults. He said his only regret was that he did not call an ambulance sooner.
