A Limerick man stabbed a mile from his home named his attacker in his dying breath as the man who is now on trial in the Central Criminal Court for his murder.
On the opening day of the trial yesterday Mr Paul O'Higgins SC, prosecuting, told the jury that the deceased, in his "settled and hopeless expectation" of death, named his attacker as the accused man. Mr John Hogan (29), of Talbot Avenue, Prospect, Limerick, pleads not guilty to the murder of Mr James O'Connor (35), Clarina Park, Ballinacurra Weston, in the city on January 9th, 1998.
Opening the case, Mr O'Higgins told the court that Mr O'Connor had been a housepainter, "achieving considerable success in his business", and the father of three young children. On the night of his death he was due to attend a darts match a mile from his home. Mr O'Connor set off to walk there and on the way to the darts venue stopped at the junction of Hyde Road and Crecora Avenue in Prospect.
"For no reason of any clear kind" a car pulled up, a man stepped out and stabbed Mr O'Connor repeatedly in the thighs. "Within minutes he was dying," Mr O'Higgins said. A combination of the five stab wounds causing considerable loss of blood and shock led to Mr O'Connor's death at approximately 9 p.m. that night.
"Knowing he was about to die and saying so", members of the gardai who had gathered around heard him say "Tiger Hogan" had stabbed him, who was the accused in the case, Mr O'Higgins said. A prosecution witness, Ms Marylin Lawlor, told the court that on the evening of the killing she was out walking when she came across the scene in which Mr O'Connor had just been stabbed.
Ms Lawlor, who used to babysit for Mr O'Connor, told the court she went over to help the dying man, who was lying on the road surrounded by people. She said she recalled Mr O'Connor named the person responsible for the stabbing. While she could not remember what that name was, it was a nickname.
Det Garda Arthur Ryan, of the crime office at Roxborough Road station, told the court that, on responding to a call while on patrol duty, he arrived at the scene just after Mr O'Connor had been stabbed. Mr O'Connor was "bleeding profusely from the thigh area", and a number of women were kneeling beside him, Garda Ryan said.
"I placed his head on my knees. He said to me: `I can't breathe, I'm dying, I can't breathe.' After he loosened the dying man's clothing he said: `Tiger Hogan stabbed me'," Garda Ryan said. "He was gulping and gasping for air and speaking in a low voice." The detective believed he was dying and said a prayer in his ear.
Mr O'Connor was brought to Limerick Regional Hospital where he was pronounced dead.
The trial before Mr Justice McCracken and a jury of four women and eight men will continue today.