A Kerry youth stabbed a Dutch woman 66 times and cut her throat with a breadknife, the Central Criminal Court heard yesterday. The 17-year-old youth, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was jailed for life by Mr Justice Frederick Morris after he pleaded guilty to murder.
The teenager admitted murdering Mrs Anne-Marie Duffin (39) at her home at Curragraigue, Blennerville, Tralee, on April 15th last year.
The judge sentenced him to the mandatory sentence of life imprisonment and said he did not want to say anything about the murder because "enough unhappiness has been generated to everyone concerned".
Supt John O'Connor of Tralee told Mr Dennis Vaughan Buckley SC, prosecuting, that Mrs Duffin, who was separated, had two teenage sons aged 15 and 13 and that the accused was a friend of the elder son.
The accused, who was aged 15 at the time of the murder, was arrested at his home in Tralee on April 28th, 1996.
He told gardai after his arrest that he had obtained a screwdriver from a garage of the house next door to Mrs Duffin and called to her home on the pretext of looking for her sons.
When she answered the door he hit her on the head, stunned her, knocked her to the floor and repeatedly stabbed her with the screwdriver before cutting her throat with a breadknife he got from the kitchen.
Mr Buckley said that assistant State pathologist, Dr Margaret Bolster, who conducted a postmortem on the dead woman, said there were 44 stab wounds to her head, 12 of which had penetrated through to the skullbone and one into the brain stem. There were 22 stab wounds to her neck, two of which had cut through the jugular vein.
She died from haemorrhage and shock from inhalation of blood and from stab wounds to the neck.
The accused told gardai after his arrest that he had pulled off Mrs Duffin's pants and pulled up her jumper to make it look like rape but he did not have sex with her.
Supt O'Connor said the accused had co-operated with gardai and appeared to be remorseful.
He said the youth felt that Mrs Duffin did not like him and did not want him associating with her son because she did not like his haircut and because he smoked cigarettes.
Cross examined by Mr Martin Giblin SC, defending, the superintendent said the accused came "from an excellent family background".
He said that Mrs Duffin was "a good caring mother to her two children and it is a tragedy for both families".
Mr Giblin said he had been asked by the youth to say that he was fully aware of the mandatory sentence and accepted that it was just.
He also wanted to say that he was very, very sorry for the hurt he has caused the Duffin family.
Mr Giblin asked the judge to sentence the youth to be detained at St Patrick's institution rather than Mountjoy Prison.
But Mr Justice Morris said the question of a place of detention or imprisonment was a matter for the appropriate authorities and ultimately the Minister for Justice, and not the courts.
The judge ordered that the life sentence should be backdated to the date of his arrest on April 28th last year.