A witness in a murder trial has told a jury in the Central Criminal Court he saw the accused man strike the victim with a galvanised object.
Prosecution witness Mr Michael Flynn said yesterday he witnessed Mr William Carroll violently strike the deceased man while crying "my lovely brother, he killed my lovely brother."
Mr William "Buster" Carroll (42) of no fixed abode, has denied the murder of Mr Thomas Harte (43) of Allen's Square, Ballymacthomas, Cork, in a disused house in Leitrim Street in the north of the city between the 19th and 20th of May 1997.
Mr Flynn said he entered the house on Leitrim Street with the accused and another man on the night of the attack to shelter from the rain. The men entered the house through a window and went into the front room, where Mr Harte was lying on a mattress.
The accused claimed to recognise Mr Harte, believing he was responsible for the killing of his brother some time earlier.
"When I heard him coming out with that kind of talk I knew there was trouble. I said `get up and get out, get out of this for God's sake'. Your honour, that's the words I said. The man didn't get up at all," Mr Flynn said.
After that "it got violent", Mr Flynn said. Mr Harte was getting epileptic fits. Mr Carroll attacked him. "Buster had a weapon in his hand, bottles and a galvanised thing for lighting fires.
"He struck the man and Buster says `my lovely brother,' he says. `He killed my lovely brother'."
The victim was bleeding. "There was blood everywhere. Blood all over the man."
Asked if the deceased man put up a struggle against the alleged attack, Mr Flynn said "the man was helpless." Mr Flynn said the next morning he "grabbed the man's hand and he was all stiff and cold."
Mr Flynn told the court that the next morning he and the accused left the property and Mr Carroll bought whiskey. When they sat down to drink, Mr Carroll allegedly warned Mr Flynn not to say anything about the dead body in the house, Mr Flynn said.
Defence counsel Mr Blaise O'Carroll SC asked Mr Flynn if he drank alcohol. He replied that he did and that he loved his drink. Mr O'Carroll asked him how he was usually after his regular amount of daily alcohol of a bottle and a half of whiskey.
"I'd be singing and playing on my mouth organ. I'd be dancing."
Asked if he ever suffered blackouts as a result of his drinking, Mr Flynn replied that he did not.
Garda Austin O'Callaghan of the photographic section of the Garda Technical Bureau at Harcourt Square confirmed for the court that photographs taken of the scene showed the body of the deceased and what appeared to be a bloodied toaster, mattress, fireplace, flooring, flowerpot and dark splashes and staining on the wall and a bookshelf.
Garda O'Callaghan said there was what appeared to be a "general contamination of blood in the room" including a "stained trail of less than 15 feet" from the front room of the house to the kitchen.
The case before Ms Justice McGuinness and a jury of eight women and four men will resume today.