How Aaron Connolly’s lies unravelled to reveal Cameron Reilly’s killer

Cameron Reilly said goodbye to his grandmother on what should have been an ordinary Friday afternoon in May and headed out with friends. It was the last time she would see him alive. The Dundalk Institute of Technology student was looking forward to the day ahead: a trip to Dundalk followed by an evening socialising with a group of friends back in Dunleer.

There were phone calls exchanged to plan the night ahead, drinks to be purchased, arrangements about who he would meet, where and when. The field near the Glen Dimplex factory was the venue for an evening of drinking, chat and music followed by the usual trip to the local chipper at the end of the night and then home to bed.

Mr Reilly never made it home that night. Instead, at some point between 12.40am and 1.40am on May 26th, 2018, Aaron Connolly, just two weeks older than his victim, violently attacked his friend and – as prosecuting counsel Dean Kelly SC said in his closing speech – left him “dead or dying in that cold field”.

It was in that same field that David Shiels, out for an early morning walk with his dog just after 8am the following morning, came across what at first appeared to be the outline of a person sleeping. “I looked up and saw the body. I walked over and said ‘hello’, thinking it was someone who was drunk and fell asleep,” he told the trial.

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What Mr Shiels had actually stumbled upon was the body of Mr Reilly, his death a result of asphyxia, either by a chokehold or external pressure to the front of his neck. He said the teenager was lying on his back and there was “discolouring and bruising” on the right-hand side of the face, neck and throat. There were “a lot of scrape marks” on the front of the neck and the deceased’s hands were “very white and clean”.

“I knew he was dead,” Mr Shiels said. A neighbour, Jean Lynch, initiated CPR on Mr Reilly, but his lips were blue and he was “stone cold”. Ms Lynch said she observed the deceased’s chin area was “scuffed-looking and red”. She said she checked for a pulse on his neck and his wrist but she did not feel anything.

“He was very cold,” she said. The paramedic who attended the scene, Debbie McCole, said the only injury on the body was neck trauma, with a lot of bruising around his neck. Connolly, the last person to see the teenager alive, told gardaí his friend had been in good form when he left him. They had parted ways near the Beechwood housing estate in Dunleer and, Connolly said, he never looked back to see which way Mr Reilly went. This was the first of what the prosecution called the “constant, fox-like evolution” of lies told by the then 18-year-old to investigating gardaí.

A gathering of friends

During the trial at the Central Criminal Court, which ended with the conviction of Connolly for murder, the jury heard from many of the young people who were present in the field on May 25th, 2018. It was a gathering of friends in the loose sense of the word, with floating groups of alliances. There was drinking on the night and drug-taking too, which initially caused a reluctance for some of those present to come forward and give statements to gardaí.

It was supposed to be an evening of fun, a night, as prosecution counsel said, that should have been notable “only for the absolute banality of the experience”.

Instead, it became a night etched in the memory of all the young people present on that fateful evening for all the wrong reasons. Mr Reilly was found dead in that same field just hours after he had been drinking with his killer. Many of Mr Reilly’s friends and acquaintances gave evidence in the case, telling the court the teenager had been in great form on the night. The court also heard the teenager had confided in some close friends that he was bisexual, in the months leading up to his death.

Shannon Carroll told the court she and Mr Reilly had been close friends for years and said he had been in “brilliant form” and was “happy and jolly” when she saw him on May 25th. She said Mr Reilly had come out to her about two months earlier and said he had been bisexual for a while, but she was unaware if he had had any relationships with men.

Erica McGuinness said Mr Reilly had told her he was bisexual and was on Grindr. Ms McGuinness said the teenager had told her he was just on the site to “suss people out” because there would often be gossip about people locally who were “in the closet”. She said on the night of May 25th Mr Reilly was keen to break away and this was “out of character for him” because he would normally be “the last man standing”.

Asked by Michael Bowman SC, defending, if there was an understanding that Mr Reilly was going to meet someone, Ms McGuinness said she had been asked if he was staying in two different houses and had said if that was the case then he “may have been going to meet someone”.

In her evidence to the court, Megan Smith said Mr Reilly was her best friend. She told prosecuting counsel Dean Kelly SC that on the night of May 25th she went to meet Mr Reilly and a group of other friends at the field at between 7.30pm and 8pm. She said there were people coming and going throughout the night and they were enjoying themselves, having a few drinks and a laugh like they normally did.

There was some drinking “but not too much” and she was aware some people were taking cocaine, but she told the court Mr Reilly never took drugs. Ms Smith said later in the evening a group, including Mr Reilly and Connolly, left the field and went to get food at the local takeaway. She said she left Mr Reilly at the entrance to a local estate and this was the last time she saw him alive.

Local rumours

During the trial, the jury heard that there was much rumour about Mr Reilly’s murder in the local area. An anonymous letter, posted to Dunleer Garda station during the investigation, contained a third-hand account about two people speaking in a pub, and a Garda decision-making model was used to evaluate its contents.

Det Supt John O’Flaherty told Mr Kelly that gardaí only ever had one suspect in the case: Aaron Connolly. Mr Bowman asked Mr O’Flaherty to confirm that the letter was written by someone who said they had overheard “a young girl and a young lad” talking in the pub saying they saw Mr Reilly being killed. Mr O’Flaherty said the letter was assessed and evaluated and a decision was made not to carry out any further action. CCTV footage from the pub was not obtained.

Mr Bowman also referred to another letter received by the gardaí in which someone said: “I know they took pictures of his lower parts after he was killed,” Mr O’Flaherty said there had been many rumours in the wake of Mr Reilly’s death and no action was taken concerning this letter either.

Connolly’s missing hour

At the outset of the case, Mr Kelly said two facts were clear: Mr Reilly was alive just before 1am and he subsequently died violently. He said it was the prosecution’s case that at some point between 12.40am and 1.40am on May 26th, Connolly intentionally brought about the death of the teenager.

He told the jury of seven women and five men it was for them to decide whether or not Connolly did it. Only Mr Reilly and his killer knew exactly what passed between them on the night, what precise words were said and what actions were taken, he said. As the case progressed, many of the blanks and the questions that had remained unanswered were finally addressed. In his initial statement to gardaí, Connolly said he had been drunk on the night but “knew what I was at”.

He told them he remembered most of what happened except for the walk home, which was “a bit vague”. He said he and Mr Reilly parted ways near the Beechwood estate and he never looked back to see which way the teenager went. However, when CCTV footage from various businesses in the town disproved this version of events, Connolly changed his story, telling investigating officers he could not remember what he was doing for the “missing hour” between 12.40am and 1.40am because he had taken a combination of drugs that made him “blackout”.

Evidence was heard from Sgt Paul Sweeney, based at Drogheda Garda station in 2018, who told how, when the missing hour was put to Connolly, he first said he “went to get a bag of weed” but that the person he got it from “would probably deny it”.

Asked why he had not told gardaí this before, Connolly said: “I didn’t want to say I was smoking weed.” Connolly claimed he used a friend’s phone to text this person at 7pm on May 25th and asked him to meet at 1am. However, when the statement of another man was read to the accused in the Garda station, Connolly replied: “Obviously he’s not going to say he’s a drug dealer, he’s gone into denial.”

Connolly told gardaí he didn’t know what he had been doing for the missing hour but emphatically denied killing his friend. “I know I didn’t kill him,” he said. “I’d know if I killed someone.” The accused said drugs were the reason he couldn’t recall what happened during the last minutes of Mr Reilly’s life.

“That hour that I’m missing, I can’t remember what I was doing. The reason I don’t remember is I was taking drugs.” He told gardaí he had taken 2g of cocaine and half a gram of MDMA and said this would sometimes cause him to “blackout”.

“I blacked out after I left Cameron, I told you everything I know. I’d know if I killed someone,” he said. Mr Sweeney said Connolly initially offered no explanation as to why his DNA was found on the neck of Mr Reilly, but the accused later said Mr Reilly was taller than him so he had to reach up and pull him down for the purpose of a group photograph that was taken.

Mr Sweeney told the trial that when gardaí put it to Connolly that his DNA was found on Mr Reilly’s penis, he told them: “It must be wrong.” Connolly did not accept that it was his DNA and said the forensic report was wrong. Mr Sweeney said Mr Connolly denied fighting with Mr Reilly and also denied touching his penis or putting his penis into his mouth.

However, two days before closing speeches were delivered in the case, the accused admitted, through his lawyers, that he had given Mr Reilly oral sex on the night he died. Mr Bowman made a proof by formal admission to the court on behalf of the 23-year-old. Mr Bowman said there had been sexual contact between Connolly and Mr Reilly on the night of the murder, with Connolly pulling down Mr Reilly’s tracksuit bottoms and placing his penis in his mouth. Mr Bowman said Connolly placed his arms around Mr Reilly’s waist when he did this.

He said Connolly performed oral sex on Mr Reilly and when he left Mr Reilly was still alive and standing up. Connolly had initially denied that anything sexual happened between him and Mr Reilly and told gardaí that he was “straight”. While both the prosecution and the defence acknowledged that under normal circumstances a person’s sexuality or sexual preferences would be nobody else’s business, prosecuting counsel contended it was in the context of the lies Connolly told about his interactions with Mr Reilly on the night of the murder.

Key evidence

On the same day that the proof by formal admission was made, forensic scientist Dr Clara Boland provided key evidence to the court. She told the jury an immunological test on a penile swab of Mr Reilly revealed human saliva that was a mixture of two people, the major sample being Mr Reilly’s own and the minor being an incomplete profile that matched Connolly’s DNA.

Dr Boland also told the court that DNA profiling on Mr Reilly’s neck showed a mixed DNA sample of two people, the major sample being Mr Reilly’s own and a minor incomplete sample that matched Connolly’s DNA.

She said an examination of the inside front of the tracksuit bottoms worn by Connolly showed a mixed DNA sample of Mr Reilly and Connolly. The witness also said the DNA of Mr Reilly and Connolly was present on the hooded top and outer tracksuit bottoms of Connolly. The trial also heard from Jack Conway, a young man who told the jury he had had sexual relations with Connolly on at least 20 separate occasions when they were teenagers but that Connolly told people he was straight.

Mr Conway told the jury he had cousins in Dunleer and through them he was friends with a number of people in the town. He said he and Connolly had a sexual encounter at Halloween when they were both 15. Mr Conway said they had been staying at a relative’s house and sharing a single bed. Mr Conway said the pair engaged in oral sex and this was initiated by Connolly.

The young man said he and Connolly were again intimate when they met in a field “a while after”. Asked by Mr Kelly if they kissed, Mr Conway said no, “because he [Aaron Connolly] didn’t like kissing”. The pair went on to have about 20 sexual encounters subsequently, Mr Conway told the court, but Connolly would tell people he was straight.

Mr Bowman put it to the witness that on the spectrum of sexual orientation, people can fall into different ranges, with some people identifying as gay, straight, bi, gender fluid or pansexual, while some people identify as straight but have sexual experiences with men, to which Mr Conway agreed. “Your evidence is you had sexual intimacy with Aaron Connolly at some stage?”, Mr Bowman asked, to which Mr Conway said, “Yes”. “You understood him to identify as being straight?”. “Yes,” Mr Conway replied. Asked by Mr Kelly if Connolly had told him he was straight or gay, Mr Conway said: “I think he told me he was bisexual.”

The trial heard evidence from Chief State Pathologist Dr Linda Mulligan who outlined the injuries she found on Mr Reilly’s neck. There were a number of external injuries in the form of abrasions and bruising as well as deep bruising around the neck and the hyoid bone, a small bone located in the upper part of the neck, she said.

“All of these features are in keeping with the application of external pressure on the neck. This was the cause of death,” the pathologist told the court. Outlining her findings from the postmortem, Dr Mulligan said pinpoint haemorrhages were evident in the membranes on the inside of the eyelids and these were more prominent on the left eye. She said the cause of death was asphyxia due to external pressure on the neck with no other contributing factors. There were no obvious ligature marks or circular bruises identified, Dr Mulligan said, and the injuries sustained were more in keeping with a chokehold or the application of a rough surface implement to the neck.

The pathologist said there was no evidence of any defence-type injuries. She said there were bruises evident on the shoulder, head and lip that may have been conducive with a struggle. Dr Mulligan also found no indication of an overtly sexual component in the death. She said the alcohol was being actively metabolised at the time of death. This suggested Mr Reilly had been drinking relatively recently but had probably stopped drinking in the hour or two before his death.

Skilful unravelling of lies

The trial heard lies were a central issue in the case against the accused. In his closing speech to the jury, Mr Kelly said Connolly lied with “precise details”, all of which were “invented in the mind of a man weaving a story to defend his own interests”. The skilful unravelling of the lies told by Connolly was what ultimately led to his conviction.

In his closing statement, Mr Bowman said the prosecution had gone “all in on the lies”. He said many of the young people on the night had lied for one reason or another. “Strategic lies” were told by several young people who were there on the night, he said, adding people had lied about drug and alcohol use in a murder trial because they were afraid.

“Strategic lies are being told. I’m going to ask you to juxtapose them to show that in circumstances like that telling the truth can be difficult,” Mr Bowman said. “The defendant was 18, in a Garda station, locked in a cell when he’s not being interviewed by gardaí.”

“The law says the mere fact that the defendant lies is not evidence enough. They may lie out of panic and confusion, they may lie because they’re afraid for all sorts of reasons.”

Mr Kelly, however, said Connolly had lied from the beginning of the investigation to the end not because he had experimented sexually with Mr Reilly or because he had been smoking weed on the night. Connolly lied, counsel said, because “he murdered his friend Cameron Reilly in that field”. He said everything Connolly had said, from the moment he and Mr Reilly left the rest of the group, was “self-serving nonsense”.

“He has lied from the beginning of this investigation to the end. Top to bottom, back to front, it’s lies,” Mr Kelly said. The “constant fox-like evolution” of the lies told by Connolly rebutted the suggestion that a young person might lie to protect his personal sexual preferences, counsel added. “There is artfulness and care in the way Mr Connolly lies, there’s rich detail in it,” he said, adding the prosecution case “absolutely destroys” the suggestion that these are lies told for an “honest or understandable reason”.

“These are lies told by a murderer to protect a murderer,” Mr Kelly told the jury. He said the accused had made a formal admission on Wednesday that he gave oral sex to Mr Reilly. Those admissions were “skeletal” and “bereft of any detail whatsoever”, counsel added.

“Finally, the penny has dropped that detail is not his friend, that detail has never been his friend. That’s ultimately how you catch a liar: in the detail.”

He said “rationality, reason and intelligence” permitted only one verdict in the case and that was guilty of murder. The jury ultimately agreed with him, convicting Connolly by a unanimous verdict.