A MAN being questioned over the death of Una Lynskey in 1971 was shown a photograph of another suspect “lying in a ditch, dead” by gardaí investigating her killing.
Martin Conmey, who was aged 20 at the time, told the Court of Criminal Appeal yesterday detectives said “you’ll be next up there” after they informed him that the body of his friend Martin Kerrigan had been found in the Dublin mountains.
Mr Kerrigan was abducted and killed and his body left in a ditch 10 days after the discovery of Ms Lynskey’s body in the same area.
He was suspected of having been involved in her disappearance two months earlier, when she vanished while returning to her family home at Porterstown Lane, Ratoath, Co Meath.
The appeal court of Mr Justice Adrian Hardiman, presiding, with Mr Justice Declan Budd and Mr Justice Éamon de Valera, was hearing testimony from Mr Conmey (59), who is attempting to clear his name over the woman’s killing.
A postmortem failed to establish how Ms Lynskey (19) died. She had no broken bones and there were no signs of strangulation.
In 1972, Conmey, Porterstown Lane, Ratoath, and another local man, Dick Donnelly, were convicted of Ms Lynskey’s manslaughter. On appeal a year later, Mr Donnelly’s conviction was overturned, but Mr Conmey served three years in prison for the offence.
Yesterday was the fourth day of the hearing of Mr Conmey’s application, under section 2 of the Criminal Procedure Act 1993, which is part of his attempt to have his case declared a miscarriage of justice.
Mr Conmey told the court that on December 20th, 1971, gardaí arrived at his workplace in Clondalkin and brought him to Rathfarnham Garda station. On the journey there, he said he was told Mr Kerrigan was dead and that “you’ll be next up there”.
He said he was verbally and physically abused while being detained at the Garda station, “punched anywhere and everywhere”.
He was shown a picture of Mr Kerrigan, “lying in a ditch, dead”, the showing of which, the court heard, “was not in dispute”.
Lawyers for Mr Conmey are arguing that “newly discovered facts” will prove he was not responsible for Ms Lynskey’s death.
These include “earlier” contradictory statements from key witnesses and a previously unknown allegation of violence and “oppression” by investigating gardaí against one of these.
Under cross-examination from lawyers for the State, Mr Conmey said he “never” told “a key witness” in the case against him about Ms Lynskey being hit by a car on the evening she disappeared.
The hearing continues today.