THE GIRLFRIEND of Shane Geoghegan heard shots outside their house moments after he had texted her to say he was almost home.
Jenna Barry was giving evidence at the Central Criminal Court in the trial of a Dublin man charged with murdering Mr Geoghegan.
Barry Doyle (24), Portland Row, Dublin, and Hyde Road, Limerick, has pleaded not guilty to murdering him on November 9th, 2008.
Mr Geoghegan (28) was shot dead in a suspected case of mistaken identity across the road from his home in Clonmore, Kilteragh, Dooradoyle, Limerick.
Ms Barry said she last saw the captain of Garryowen rugby club about two hours earlier in a friend’s house, a two-minute walk from their home. She left him there and visited his mother before returning home.
“I texted him to see was he coming home just before 1am. He said he was on his way, he’d be home in a minute,” she testified yesterday.
“I heard a series of loud bangs. I heard two outside the house,” she continued. “It sounded like fireworks to me. It was around Halloween.”
However when the couple’s two dogs didn’t stop barking and seemed “unusually tense”, she looked out the front door on to the cul-de-sac.
“I saw someone run towards a car,” she recalled, confirming that the engine of the vehicle was running and the sliding door was open. “The wheels were screeching and someone was shouting ‘Drive’.”
She said she saw a young hooded man get into the car. She then dialled 999 and reported the incident.
“I texted Shane. I told him: ‘I think there’s been a shooting’.”
A neighbour gave evidence of looking out his back window that night after hearing what sounded like gunshots and screaming.
“I first heard two that sounded like gunshots, then a person screaming. It sounded like he was in pain,” said Rebabonye Pharithe.
“The first two [shots] were very close to each other,” Mr Pharithe added. “I looked out the window and saw a people-carrier car parked in the cul-de-sac.”
After the scream, he heard four or five more shots.
“The car in the cul-de-sac switched on the lights after I heard the first two shots,” he continued, adding that it sped off after the rest of the shots were fired.
He said that he and his wife looked out their front window as the car sped past to see if they could identify the number plate.
“We couldn’t, it was moving too fast,” he said. He dialled 999.
Several witnesses gave evidence of seeing a navy Renault Espace parked outside Ballycummin Village apartments in the week or weeks before the killing. Many had noticed it because it was badly parked.
One resident of the block, Barbara Valtiniova, said she saw two hooded people approach it on the evening before the killing. She heard it start after two attempts, she said.
Minutes later it was gone.
A ballistics expert from the Garda Technical Bureau identified the three bullets taken from Mr Geoghegan’s body during the postmortem examination.
Det Garda Mark Collender showed the jury rounds of 9mm calibre ammunition found at the scene. Two undischarged or live rounds of ammunition were located near Ms Barry’s car.
“These rounds had been ejected manually,” he said, explaining that these still had their bullets in the cartridge cases.
“The most likely way this happens is if there is some sort of a stoppage or malfunction with the weapon,” he added. “You dispose of this round and try again with another round.”
He also found eight discharged cartridge cases at the scene.
“They are found roughly where the shot was fired from,” Det Garda Collender said.
These were discovered on the road and around the house across the cul-de-sac, where Mr Geoghegan’s body was found. Most were beside the body.
The trial continues before Mr Justice Paul Carney and is expected to last up to four weeks.