A FORMER US marine who attacked a corpse has signed himself into a centre for addiction treatment, a court heard yesterday in Co Cork.
Mr Willis Baynes Nash (44) upset relatives last March when he starting shouting at the dead man in his coffin to "wake up".
He had explained to Macroom District Court on June 4th that he had been on a drinking binge after his aunt had a heart attack and a friend died from cancer.
"I went up and saw the corpse. I hit it and said, `Wake up, wake up'," he said. Judge Brendan Wallace, who described the case as "very distasteful, very serious", adjourned it for sentencing.
Mr Baynes Nash, who lives at Keel, a few miles from Macroom in north Cork, sat at the back of the court during yesterday's hearing.
When told the former US marine was going to Tab our Lodge for residential treatment, Judge Wallace further adjourned the case to September 3rd.
The earlier hearing had been told that when he was removed from the funeral home in the village of Ballyvourney he assaulted the undertaker's son.
He then attacked the owner of the local supermarket, Mr Christy Lucey, and his wheelchair bound wife, Tess.
Garda Pat O'Sullivan came to the rescue of Mr Lucey, whom Mr Baynes Nash had spreadeagled on the ground, threatening to stab him in the eyes with a ballpoint pen, Macroom District Court heard on June 4th.
The 6ft 4in American told the court at the time he thought he was in a dream when he went to the funeral home.