A MAN accused of knifing his father to death was found in a distressed state on the stairs in the family home, as his wounded father lay in an armchair nearby, a murder trial was told yesterday.
Gardai described how every room in the house was in disarray and bloodstained, all the windows were smashed from the inside and loud music was playing when they arrived.
Mr Thomas Heaney (28), has pleaded not guilty to the murder of his father Mr Peter Heaney (59) at Marian Villas, Arklow, Co Wicklow, on October 9th, 1994.
The prosecution has claimed Mr Heaney stabbed his father to death as he lay drunk and asleep because he resented the relationship his father had formed with a married woman after his wife's death.
Garda Michael Murphy told the court yesterday that he arrived at the accused's home at 1.45 a.m. He found the accused man sitting at the bottom of the stairs in the hallway and his father in a chair in the sitting room. The accused man seemed distressed and his hands were bleeding.
When Sgt John Leahy arrived Peter Heaney was lying in the chair. He moaned as a doctor tended to him. The accused vomited several times and they had to wait until he recovered before taking him to the local Garda station.
When he saw the accused man later in the station, he was with his aunt, Ms Mary Sherwood. The accused man refused to sign a written notice of his rights, claiming he could not read it without his glasses.
"Having told Garda Gabbett he required glasses, he gave a wink to his aunt", Sgt Leahy told the court. Cross examined by Mr Brendan Grogan, SC, defending, he said it was not an involuntary blink. When he told the accused man that his father was dead, Mr Heaney said: "Oh shit."
Det Insp John Cassells said when Mr Heaney was interviewed he remained silent at certain stages and during a second interview he replied to no question.
Det Garda William Brennan from the ballistics section of the Garda Technical Bureau told Mr Justice Budd that he found a heavily bloodstained torch in the back garden and the fractured blade of a large carving knife under the cushion of the chair in which Mr Peter Heaney had been sitting.
Det Garda John McKenna said that when he produced a knife and knife handle in Arklow Garda station at 10.55 a.m. on October 9th and asked the accused man if he could identify them, he did not reply.
The trial enters its fifth day today.