A man has been convicted of the manslaughter of his housemate who he stabbed after losing money to him during a New Year’s Eve poker game.
Tomasz Paszkiewicz (39) had pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to the manslaughter of fellow Polish man Marek Swider (40) on Dublin Street, Ballyjamesduff, Co Cavan on January 1st, 2018.
The Central Criminal Court heard that Paszkiewicz used a knife he had from his work on the ‘kill floor’ of a meat plant to twice stab Mr Swider after losing hundreds of euro to him.
Paskiewicz made a number of admissions on the opening day of his trial including that he had invited the deceased outside after a row erupted during the game. He admitted stabbing him when they went outside.
The accused told gardaí that he did not have any thoughts in his brain at the time and the defence argued that this showed a lack of intent.
A friend of the deceased was visiting that evening and testified that there had been a friendly atmosphere until the incident happened. Zdenek Hebron, a Czech national, said the deceased had won all the money, but that Paszkiewicz had grabbed it and put it in his pocket.
He said Mr Swider had said: ‘Wait, that’s all my money’.
Stab wounds
Mr Swider underwent surgery but died on New Year’s morning. A postmortem found that he died of two stab wounds, one to the chest and one to the abdomen.
The boning knife, engraved with Paskiewicz’s employee number, was discovered at the scene, but the accused was nowhere to be found. He was crisscrossing the country by bus and eventually walked into a garda station in Cork City.
The garda on duty thought he was joking when he asked to be arrested for kiling a man three days earlier.
“We played cards. I drink a lot of vodka. I lost €500. I went crazy. I took this money and left. He followed me,” he said. “I don’t know how I had the knife in my hand. We were talking. Then I took the knife and pushed.”
Cavan-based gardaí travelled to Cork to interview him and he agreed that he had become proficient with a knife from years of boning cows’ heads in the meat plant.
“I have to open the cow’s head and cut off the cheeks. That is all I do,” he explained.
He told gardaí that he did not remember going into the kitchen for the knife on the night but said that he probably did. He was asked what was going through his head when he was standing outside, face to face with the deceased, “knife in your hand and you stab him twice”.
“This is not me. Power move my hand over. I don’t decide I go stab him,” he replied. “I look at his face but I don’t see his face... I don’t have any thoughts in my brain. I not decide move my hand to stab him.”
Following almost five hours of deliberations, the jury reached a majority verdict of not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter.
Ms Justice Tara Burns remanded Paszkiewicz in custody for sentencing on July 15th, when a victim impact statement will be ready.