Bid to overturn axe murder of homeless man is refused

A father-of-five has failed in a bid to have his conviction overturned for the axe murder of a homeless Lithuanian man, whose body was found on a Meath beach.

Marius Gaizutis (55), with a last address at Marsh Road, Drogheda, Co Louth had admitted killing but denied murdering Audrius Butkus (44) at that address on the 9th or 10th of September, 2013.

Mr Butkus, a single man with no children, had come to Ireland in 2006 but fell into a pattern of heavy drinking. Gardai were unable to trace any of his immediate family and he was buried with the assistance of a homeless group in St Peter’s Cemetery in Drogheda.

After encountering Gaizutis on the evening of September 9, Mr Butkus was invited back to the house on Marsh road for a drink but was never seen alive again. A fisherman discovered his half-naked body face down on Mornington beach the following morning.

In a judgement delivered electronically, Mr Justice John Edwards said the Court of Appeal found there was no basis for believing that the trial was in any way unsatisfactory or the verdict was in any way unsafe.

The prosecution case was that Mr Butkus died from “multiple blows” to the back of his head with an axe, while the defence contended that Gaizutis had been provoked by threats the deceased made to him, particularly against Gaizutis’ family. The only account of what had happened in the house came from what Gaizutis told gardaí.

Forensic evidence also showed there had been an attempt to clean up the scene of the murder.

In his first two interviews, Gaizutis claimed to have no recollection of what happened, and then claimed the victim had insulted him and hit him over the head with a bottle, in what prosecuting lawyers characterised as an “evolving story”.

On May 1, 2015 a jury of four women and eight men found Gaizutis guilty of murder by unanimous verdict after deliberating for less than three hours. He was jailed for life by

Ms Justice Margaret Heneghan later that month.

Gaizutis had appealed his conviction on the grounds that there was insufficient evidence for the charge of murder to go to the jury.

His barrister, Ciaran O’Loughlin SC, submitted that the trial judge ought to have directed his client’s acquittal on the murder charge, and allowed the manslaughter charge alone to go to the jury.

Mr O’Loughlin said there was no objective evidence to contradict the defence of provocation, or to undermine what Gaizutis had told gardaí. The victim had no defensive wounds, but Gaizutis had wounds which was objective evidence supporting the accused’s contention he was attacked with a bottle, he said.

Counsel for the Director of Public Prosecutions, Patrick Gageby SC, said the only material capable of supporting a defence of provocation could be found in what Gaizutis said to gardaí towards the end of his interviews.

Mr Gageby said it was an “evolving story” and the jury were entitled to conclude that what Gaizutis’ had said to gardaí was “self-serving”. He said the credibility of the claim Gaizutis was provoked could be tested by the surrounding circumstances.

In the judgement, Mr Justice Edwards said it is only in cases where there is insufficient evidence to enable a jury properly charged to convict in any circumstances, or alternatively such evidence was so infirm that a jury properly charged could not safely convict in any circumstances, that a case should be withdrawn from the jury.

He said the submissions by the DPP “eloquently demonstrated” that even though the only account as to what occurred came from Gaizutis, there were numerous decisions as to matters of fact that arose for consideration in any assessment of that evidence.

The judge said at no point was there a concession that the account provided by Gaizutis as to how he came to kill Mr Butkus was correct.

Mr Justice Edwards said there was a “prima facie” case of murder and it was for the jury to determine whether or not the appropriate verdict was in fact murder.

Gaizutis had raised the partial defence of provocation and it was required to be established by the jury whether he was entitled to the benefit of that defence.

Mr Justice Edwards said that if the trial judge had adopted the approach submitted by the appellant she would, in effect, have concluded that no reasonable jury could possibly question what Gaizutis had said in his garda interviews on how the killing occurred, and with respect to his claim of having been provoked.

The judge said such an approach would have been “manifestly incorrect” and the court believed that if the trial judge had withdrawn the case from the jury, she would have been “completely unjustified” in doing so.

Mr Justice Edwards said the court found no error in the approach of the trial judge and she was right to allow the matter to go to the jury.