A former partner of murder accused Graham Dwyer has said he took a kitchen knife into their bedroom during sex and pretended to stab her.
Emer McShea had a relationship with Mr Dwyer in the early 1990s and gave birth to their son, Sennan, in 1992.
Mr Dwyer (42), an architect from Kerrymount Close in Foxrock, is charged with murdering childcare worker Elaine O’Hara (36) on August 22nd, 2012. He has pleaded not guilty.
Ms O’ Hara’s remains were found in a forest on Kilakee Mountain, Rathfarnham, on September 13th, 2013. The prosecution has alleged Mr Dwyer killed Ms O’Hara for his own sexual gratification.
Ms McShea was led through her evidence by Seán Guerin SC, for the prosecution. She agreed she had a relationship with Mr Dwyer when they were in college. She agreed that one night during their relationship they had a discussion about fantasies.
‘Fantasy’
“He told you that his fantasy involved stabbing a woman while having sex with her,” Mr Guerin said.
“Yes, that is right,” Ms McShea replied.
After that, Mr Dwyer would bring a kitchen knife into their bedroom during sex and he would pretend to stab her, but he never actually did, Mr Guerin said.
Ms McShea agreed.
She also agreed that gardaí had shown her stills from Belarmine Plaza, in Stepaside, where Ms O’Hara had lived, and that she had identified Mr Dwyer on them. The dates of the clips were January 21st, June 23rd, July 11th, July 12th, August 13th and August 15th, 2012.
“I was shown stills initially, and then I was shown video clips,” Ms Mc Shea said.
She agreed Mr Dwyer had sent their son a birthday card in November last year.
She said she contacted her son when she recognised Mr Dwyer’s handwriting and he told her to open it.
It included personal messages and the lines “Everything going well here. All forensics clear and we are sure of an acquittal now we have a mountain of evidence that it was suicide.” She gave it to gardaí.
Sennan McShea was also led through his evidence by Mr Guerin. He agreed he had spent time in Cork with his grandparents in the summer of 2006 when he was 14. He said had been smoking in secret, and his grandmother found out and told his father.
“You had planned telling him yourself?” Mr Guerin asked.
“But I hadn’t actually got around to it,” Mr McShea replied.
Dangers of smoking
Mr McShea agreed Mr Dwyer “hit the roof” and gave him a lecture on the dangers of smoking and got “very upset by it”.
He also agreed he had met his father in July 2012, while Mr Dwyer was working on a project in Letterkenny Hospital.
Mr McShea said he was in his home in Ballyshannon and his father called and collected him and they both travelled to Bundoran. He also said he identified his father from stills of CCTV footage from Belarmine Plaza.
Mr Dwyer’s younger brother, Brendan Dwyer also gave evidence. He confirmed he told gardaí in October, 2013, that he last saw his brother on Blind Strand, Cork on September 7th, 2013.
He said they were camping with their father, other brother James and James’s brother- in-law and it was the third camping trip they had been on. They also camped in 2012, he said.
Books on Elaine O’Hara’s laptop
Earlier the Central Criminal Court heard that books describing techniques for killing were found on a laptop owned by Ms O'Hara.
Det Garda Bríd Wallace said the three books were last accessed on August 18th, 2012.
Det Garda Wallace said the books were in pdf file format. One was called ‘21 techniques of silent killing’. It included chapters entitled ‘manual weapons’, ‘spike’, ‘knife’ and ‘nunchukus’.
Another book, described as a 35-page booklet, was called ‘Hidden Secret Weapons’. It contained an account of various weapons. A third book, ’Murder inc. The Book by Jack the Rippa’, identified a number of different ways of killing people. It included methods for picking targets and ways to kill them.
The book files were created on April 6th, 2009 and last accessed on August 18th, 2012, Det Garda Wallace said.
Other documents found included a file listing the tablets Ms O’Hara was taking. A file entitled “Pictures for Stuart” a collection of photographs of Ms O’Hara and her family for her counsellor, made in July 2010 and printed January 2011.
A photo was also on file of a long-haired, bearded male. The photo appeared to originate from alternative lifestyle website, Alt.com.
Det Garda Wallace also said she found an article entitled ‘Dyslexia and Reading’. It was an essay about dyslexia and children and appeared to be by someone studying the subject. It was more than 1,800 words long and, Det Garda Wallace said, had an editing time of zero minutes, which suggested it originated elsewhere. It also was last modified by ‘AD Wejchert’.
Asked by Sean Guerin SC, for the prosecution, what that meant, Det Garda Wallace said it indicated “the profile name of the person logged into the computer”.
The detective also gave evidence of communications via Yahoo messenger, an online instant messaging service. Ms O’Hara’s user name was “bound” and her address was boundforyou.slave7@gmail.com. There were communications with three people, the court was told.
The communications were between September 15th and November 4th 2010.
Det Garda Wallace agreed with Mr Guerin that they were “all indicative of people with an interest in BDSM” and others were about making arrangements to meet people.
The first chat session was with DRDK22@yahoo.com n September 15th, 2010 between 10.10pm and 11pm.
The detective agreed with Mr Guerin that the other party appeared to be male and Ms O’Hara was addressing him as “sir”.
He told her he had uploaded his picture to Alt.com, but his face was not clear. His user name was Deepak. There was discussion about sexual activity and bondage activity in the message.
A second communication from the same person, dated September 18th, 2010, began shortly after 11pm and ended at 12.18am. there was a discussion about Ms O’Hara’s work and looking for a master.
The second profile was kurtronquist@archaeology.eu. Mr Guerin reminded the jury Mr Ronquist had already given evidence.
The message from him was dated September 21st, 2010. She addressed him as “sir” and they discussed availability of time to meet.
They also discussed a sleeping bag or duvet as a form of punishment and BDSM activity, as well as “general conversation”.
A second message from the same man, on September 23rd 2010, discussed planning BDSM activity and meeting on Grafton Street the following Saturday. Another message, on September 25th, discussed interior decoration.
Det Garda Wallace identified a third communicator as Master William with an address at roleplay@hotmail.com.
On November 4th, a message from him said he was a solicitor. He indicated what he expected from a slave and if they met, what he would like her to do. They discussed meeting in Dundrum. There were also excerpts of text messages with “William” found on Ms O’Hara’s computer.
A text in July 2011 talked about finding another person and about meeting again. In late July, there was a discussion about meeting and it was not clear from the extracts whether they met or not.
They discussed shopping at Dundrum and In late November 2011, there was a reference sent by Ms O’Hara to “her master”.
Det Garda Wallace also carried out a browser search of Ms O’Hara’s activity. It included a search for “prostitute asesineda stabbed 14 times”.
There were also traces of chats with two other profiles including kinkyswitch38@yahoo.co.uk.
Ms O’Hara had also visited extremerestraints.com and received emails confirming her orders, Det Garda Wallace said. She said the orders were for “sexually related paraphernalia” and were delivered to an address at Ardmeen Lodge, where Ms O’Hara lived before she moved to Stepaside.
The trial continues.
