Teen’ freaked out’ as father tried to saw off partner’s head, trial jury hears
A MURDER trial has heard the taped police interview of a teenager who said he “freaked out” as he watched his father trying to chop off his girlfriend’s head.
The interview was played at the trial of David Lyness (52), who denies murdering 51-yearold Anita Downey in his Toberhewny Hall home in Lurgan on January 20 last year.
Craigavon Crown Court, sitting in Belfast, has already heard that Ms Downey was found with her throat cut to her spine.
Yesterday, the jury of seven men and five women listened as Lyness’ son described the situation confronting him as he watched his dad, straddling Ms Downey, “sawing” at her neck, as he told him: “It had to be done.”
The teenager, clearly distressed at times, was seen telling police that he couldn’t understand why Ms Downey seemed “too calm for someone who was getting their head chopped off ”.
Initially, he described how he returned home to find his dad, who was drunk, sitting playing poker on his computer.
At around midnight Ms Downey arrived in a taxi.
She was also drunk, “almost paralytic”, and unsteady on her feet.
But, as they went on to drink four bottles of “cheap Chardonnay” between them, almost “glass for glass”, they began to argue more and more, and the teenager went to his bedroom, not wanting to listen to their squabbling.
However, within moments he ran back to the living room on hearing his father say: “I’m going to beat you.”
He found him sitting astride Ms Downey, “punching and violently abusing her”.
When he asked his dad what he was doing, he came at him, and pushing him out of the way stormed into the kitchen, returning with a large knife. The teenager further claimed that his father “knew what he was going for when he went to the kitchen”.
“It was just the way he stormed out, in a bad mood,” he said. “He was only there for about a second before I heard the knife rack going... he knew what he was going into the kitchen for.”
The teenager said Ms Downey was lying on the floor “still dazed and confused about what was going on”, and when his dad threatened him with the knife, he backed off towards the stairs “fearing” for his own life.
However, again within moments he ran back to the living room when he heard Ms Downey screaming: “Help me, help me, he’s cutting me.”
The teenager told police that when he opened the living room door this time “there was blood everywhere”.
He said that his father was again sitting astride Ms Downey, but this time he was “sawing” at her neck with the knife, “the biggest one in the house”.
The son described hearing Ms Downey’s voice as being “so calm”.
“I don’t know how she was so calm... he was sawing at her neck ... and she just looked at me: ‘Your dad’s cutting me’,” he said.
“I just don’t understand... why are you not in so much pain... you’re talking to me like nothing’s happening as... he’s sitting there sawing at your neck,” said the teen.
Ms Downey knew “all life was just slipping away from her” and he just couldn’t understand how someone “who was getting their head chopped off ” was so calm.
Having seen the hole in Ms Downey’s neck, and the blood that was everywhere, and “dripping” from the knife in his father’s hand, the teenager said he “just freaked out”. He ran from the house, followed by his father, who threatened to turn the knife on himself.
Asked by police what his dad may have meant by that, the teenager replied: “Well maybe he knew he was going to go to jail ... and instead of going to jail, he was going to top... kill himself.”
At hearing.