A man has been found guilty of murdering his girlfriend, whom he blamed for having him evicted from his flat. He has been given a mandatory life sentence.
Mary Ryan (37), Drogheda, was found unconscious in her boyfriend’s bedsitter last year. She was rushed to hospital but died almost immediately due to neck compression and blunt force trauma to the head.
Waldemar Solowiow (46) went on trial last week, charged with murdering her at his home on Upper Sherrard Street, Dublin, on May 18th or 19th, 2012.
The unemployed welder and mechanic pleaded not guilty to murdering her but guilty to her manslaughter. He said they had had a physical fight the night before she died, but claimed he did not mean to kill her.
The Central Criminal Court trial heard that gardaí had been called to the flat on a number of occasions due to the couple’s drunken behaviour.
Solowiow’s landlord, Pat McInerney, said that on the night of May 18th, he told him that he and Ms Ryan had to leave the property by noon the following day. He said he would find another flat for Solowiow, provided he did not bring Ms Ryan with him.
Laughing and shouting
Solowiow, a father of two, told the trial that it was after Mr McInerney left that he and Ms Ryan began fighting. She began laughing then shouting at him.
“I became nervous,” he said. “I slapped her face. She exploded. She jumped on me and hit me several times. We were rolling on the floor.”
He said she managed to get up and tried to open the door of the flat. He said he thought she was going to start a fight with a neighbour or burn the house down and he was afraid they would be arrested. “I grabbed her and pulled her off,” he said, agreeing that he could have grabbed her by the neck.
He said she began to fight with him again. He said she fell on to a coffee table and banged her head. He asked if she wanted to go to the hospital because she was holding her head, but that she told him to f**k off. He went to the off licence at about 10.30am and it was on his return that he noticed Ms Ryan had stopped breathing and her colour had changed. He said he rang a friend, who told him to call an ambulance.
Phone records showed a delay of 11 minutes between the two phone calls but Solowiow denied that he had been trying to hide bloodstained items.
The court heard that he first told the authorities that Ms Ryan had been assaulted by three men on the street the previous night and that he had rescued her. He continued with this story during his first six Garda interviews, before eventually admitting that he had caused her death. He told his trial that he had loved her and was very sorry.
Solowiow and his defence team argued that he did not intend to cause death or serious injury and that Ms Ryan had provoked him, both of which would reduce murder to manslaughter. However the jury did not accept this and found him guilty of murder.
Previous convictions
Det Garda Ian Brunton said Solowiow had a number of convictions for public order and alcohol-related offences and theft.
He read out a victim impact statement on behalf of Ms Ryan’s family, who did not wish to give a public statement.
They said Ms Ryan was a decent person, who became involved in drugs and alcohol to cover up personal pain. “This verdict has given us some sense of justice,” they said.