A man accused of murdering his uncle should have stood trial on lesser charges, his defence counsel argued yesterday as closing speeches were heard by a jury in the Central Criminal Court.
However, the prosecution said the accused man might be "odd and strange" but that "behind his behavioural abnormality there is a streak of cunning".
Mr Eugene Daly (23), of Dooneen, Kilcummin, Killarney has pleaded not guilty to the murder of his uncle, Patrick Daly (69), at the same address on or about January 18th, 1996. He has admitted throwing his uncle's body into a disused well on his farm after he was killed. The well was filled in with polythene and stones and "topped up" with sand.
Mr Gregory Murphy, prosecuting, said there was a temptation to feel sympathy for Mr Daly as well as for the deceased. It was by any standards an "extraordinary case", made all the more so by the behaviour and circumstances of the accused man.
"It is only five miles from Dooneen to the centre of the tourist trade in Ireland, Killarney," he said, yet it was here that Paddy Daly was killed in a manner which reminded him of the film Deliverance, with its story of the discovery of "poor white folk" living on a mountain, "who are out of the mainstream". "But behind this behavioural abnormality there is a streak of cunning," Mr Murphy said. Mr Daly had said he had not participated in the killing of his uncle nor had he planned it with another man, contrary to uncontested statements he made to the Garda. Mr Murphy said he had admitted to hanging a dog belonging to his uncle. "You could say he showed as much indifference to the killing of his uncle as he did to the death of the dog." Mr Murphy asked the jury to consider the timing of the killing. Could it be that a Thursday was deliberately chosen so that the accused man's brother, who was certain to disapprove of the killing, would be away from the farm collecting his dole in Killarney?
If there was no intent to murder, why had the accused man, who never did any work around the farm, knocked down a wall and piled the stones into a heap to be used later to fill the well? Mr Adrian Hardiman SC, defending, said no one would want to convict a "severely disadvantaged, poorly equipped young man, bordering on mental handicap" unless there was "very clear evidence" that he had participated in murder. Reminding the jury of his client's tendency to "ramble on" in speech, Mr Hardi man said: "Eugene Daly talked himself into this charge".
His client had been released from custody on February 8th, 1996, while the Director of Public Prosecutions had decided to charge another man with murder.
The following day, he rang gardai and by the end of that day "he was charged too". While his statements to gardai were voluntary and there was no doubt he had said the things attributed to him, "this has nothing to do with how reliable they are".
If the other man had confided in him a plan to kill, it was not a prudent thing to do. Further, why, if the killing was planned, had not the accused man, "a younger, stronger man", carried it out?
Mr Hardiman said there was no evidence of a conspiracy to murder. Instead, the evidence suggested that "the most likely thing was that Eugene Daly was tagging along, like a little boy", doing whatever was asked of him.
The judge's charge to the jury will be heard on Monday.