Man pleads not guilty to murder of mother and daughter (8)

A 27-year-old forestry worker has gone on trial at the Central Criminal Court in Tralee charged with the murders of a mother and her eight-year old daughter at their home in Killorglin, Co Kerry last year.

The trial is expected to take up to four weeks and there will be simultaneous translation into Lithuanian throughout, with two interpreters sworn in yesterday.

Speaking through an interpreter, Aurimas Andruska pleaded not guilty to the murders of Jolanta Lubiene (27), originally from Lithuania, and her daughter Enrika (8) at Langford Downs, Killorglin between June 15th and June 17th, 2013.

Prosecution counsel Isobel Kennedy SC told the jury Enrika had been born in Lithuania and mother and daughter lived together. The relationship between Jolanta and her husband Marius was “up and down.” He had not been in Ireland since the previous April.

Ms Lubiene was working at St Joseph’s Nursing Home in Killorglin on the catering staff. The last sighting of her was on CCTV footage on Langford Street at 1.54 pm on June 15th coming from work; Enrika was seen cycling around the estate that morning.

On Sunday evening, June 16th, according to Ms Kennedy, Ms Lubiene friend Ramute Normonte and her husband called to the house at 8.30pm. The dog was barking. Ms Normonte looked in a side window and saw what she thought was blood on the stairs and a body on the kitchen floor. She noticed the skin was very pale. She immediately went to the local Garda station.

A garda who entered through the back door saw the “bloodied body of a female” on the kitchen floor and upstairs found the body of a young girl on the landing upstairs lying face down. The scene was preserved.

The jury would hear that both died from haemhorrhage and shock, and multiple stab wounds, Ms Kennedy said.

Ms Lubiene was stabbed in the kitchen utility area and she attempted to get out the back door. Enrika had received a serious head injury in the hallway and bled heavily going up the stairs, she said.

Ms Kennedy said the jury would hear how the accused was arrested on June 27th. He told gardaí he had called to Langford Downs on June 11th, spent some time there and took CDs Ms Lubiene was giving away.

On either June 13th or 14th he went back to the house with a bottle of rum for her and they had sexual contact, Ms Kennedy said.

The jury would hear he told gardai on June 15th he was with two friends and they took their boss’s forestry van to Killarney and returned to Killorglin. Later that evening he went to a party of another friend.

Relatives of the dead woman including her mother were in court.

The trial continues before Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy and a jury of seven women and five men.