A deaf man who was found dead in a country laneway in 1998 had earlier requested assistance, making the 999 sign with his finger after he had been beaten up, a murder trial jury heard yesterday.
Ms Bernadette Fitzgerald, the former girlfriend of Mr William Roche (23) accused of the murder of Mr John Carroll (21), was giving evidence at the second day of his trial at the Central Criminal Court. Mr Roche, a native of Limerick with an address at Millstream, Killaloe, Co Clare, has denied the murder of Mr Carroll, Cappamore, Co Limerick on December 4th, 1998, at Garraun, Ballinahinch, Newport, Co Tipperary.
Ms Fitzgerald told Mr Dominic McGinn for the prosecution that she was friendly with Mr Carroll for over two years at the time of his death. On the night of December 3rd he was with her and her ex-boyfriend, Mr Roche, and a number of others at a pub in Killaloe, Co Clare.
She said Mr Roche and Mr Carroll seemed to be getting along well, and that Mr Carroll kept reassuring the accused that he was only a friend of Ms Fitzgerald's, and that there was nothing going on between them. After the pub they went to her sister's house in a nearby housing estate.
"John was playing with my nephew and handed him £1," she said. The accused and a second man were talking and she couldn't hear what they were saying.
Suddenly, Mr Carroll ran out of the house and she followed him.
"John told me the two boys were going to jump him," she told the court. Mr Roche and the other man came out of the house and she said she thought "they were probably going to rob him or beat him up".
Ms Fitzgerald tried to protect Mr Carroll, but the second man kicked him in the chest. She was knocked to the ground by a blow and said she then saw Mr Roche kicking Mr Carroll in the stomach.
She suggested he be taken to the hospital, and said the accused man agreed but the second man wouldn't give him his car keys. The accused carried Mr Carroll back into her sister's house and put him on the couch.
"He was looking for a pen and paper," she said. "We gave him a crayon . . . but he couldn't write; he did the 999 sign on the couch," she told counsel.
After a while she said the accused and two others put the injured man into a car and told her they were taking him to the hospital. "I thought it was only a row, I thought he was going to be OK," she said. The next day the accused and the two others claimed that Mr Carroll had jumped out of the car and ran away.
The prosecution alleges that Mr Carroll was brought in a semi-conscious condition by Mr Roche and two others to a remote laneway where his head was "bashed in" with the handle of a ratchet. He was left for dead and no assistance was called, it is alleged.
The trial continues today before Mr Justice Kevin O'Higgins and a jury.