Ferns man told gardai he tried to burn murder victim

A FERNS native accused of murdering a 41-year-old in Carlow told gardaí that he kicked the man multiple times before removing the man’s clothes before trying to burn him, the Central Criminal Court heard last week.

‘I frightened myself, I was like an animal,’ Liam Power (52) said to the gardaí, the court was told.

Latvian man Gints Intembergs was found dead on his kitchen floor in Graigowen, Tullow, on the morning of September 16, 2014.

Mr Power, of no fixed abode, and Latvian native Dzintars Sackalausks (33) of Barrowvale, Graiguecullen, are both charged with murdering him on that or the previous day. Mr Power has pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to manslaughter. Mr Sackalausks has pleaded not guilty to murdering him. Each accused has also pleaded not guilty to assaulting another man, Aigar Sildars, causing him harm on the same occasion.

WEDNESDAY

Counsel for the State, Mr Paul Greene SC, called Dr Brian Gibson from Forensic Science Ireland who examined items of clothing belonging to the two accused men. ‘I was asked to search for blood patterns and then obtain DNA profiles from the blood patterns I found on the clothes,’ he said. He received a tube of the deceased’s blood; a pair of white Adidas runners belonging to Mr Power; a DNA kit from Aigar Sildars; and a pair of black Nike runners, tracksuit bottoms and a t-shirt belonging to Mr Sackalausks.

On Mr Power’s runners, he found ‘contact and splatter blood-stains on the inner aspect of the left runner.’ The DNA profile from three of these blood-stains matched the DNA profile of the deceased. He said that the three blood patterns on the runner could be created by kicking actions.

There was just a small amount of blood-staining present on the run- ners belonging to Mr Sackalausks. ‘ The DNA profile matched the profile of Aigar Sildars,’ he said. There was no blood-staining on the items of clothing.

Dr Gibson agreed with Mr Patrick Gageby SC, defending Mr Sackalausks, that he could not discern any pattern of contact blood-staining on his client’s runners like he found on Mr Power’s runners. He agreed that the area of blood-staining on Mr Sackalausks runners was ‘very small’ and just measured ‘millimetres.’

The prosecution called Annette Ford, a scientist from Forensic Science Ireland, who analysed a pattern of bruises on the deceased’s body, and also the accused’s footwear to see if any impressions were made. She found four different impressions ‘of varying detail’ on the deceased’s body.

The court heard that none of the impressions on the deceased’s body matched the pattern on Mr Sackalausks runners. ‘Any identifiable patterns I saw matched the pattern of Mr Power’s runners,’ she said.

‘ There is moderately strong support that the impressions on the deceased’s body were made by the footwear of Mr Power. Maybe Mr Sackalausks didn’t kick Mr Intembergs or there was no observable impressions made if he did kick him,’ she said.

The prosecution then called Detective Garda Donal Lawlor who said he went to a house in Shaw Park in Carlow on the afternoon of September 16 as he was aware Mr Power was suspected of being the Irishman involved in the incident. Mr Power was in the sitting room and there was ‘a strong smell of drink off him.’

‘He said to me: “I was in Tullow last night, things got out of control. I kicked the head off him, look at my runners, shit happens and I lost the head, what can I do, that is all I can say”,’ said the witness. Gardaí took possession of a pair of white runners and white socks belonging to Mr Power.

Mr Power told gardaí that he used one of his white socks to wash bloodstains from his runner before throwing it out a side window of the house. This sock was then retrieved from on top of a pile of rubbish directly under this window.

THURSDAY

State Pathologist Professor Marie Cassidy gave evidence on Thursday of the post-mortem exam she carried out on the deceased.

She attended the scene and found the deceased lying face up on a tiled floor, covered with a duvet. ‘He had obvious injuries to his face,’ she said. ‘ There was evidence of attempts to burn his t-shirt and there were cigarette burns on the trunk.’ She later carried out a post-mortem exam on his body.

She found he had severe and extensive trauma to his face, head, neck and upper chest. The injuries to his head and neck had a patterned, striped appearance, indicating impact with an object such as the sole of a shoe. She said his nose was swollen and flattened, one of his teeth was broken and he had a fractured rib.

She also found evidence of fire damage. ‘ There were burns on his body,’ she said. ‘ The pubic hair was singed.’ She outlined further fire damage to his arm and the base of his penis.

She said that an internal exam found a subdural haemorrhage. She explained that this was ‘a massive blood clot’ inside the skull cavity. ‘ The subdural haemorrhage had compressed his brain, causing death,’ she said.

The right half of his brain was swollen and there was a haemorrhage to its surface. She explained that this bleeding had been caused by the tearing of blood vessels on the surface of the brain and that this was due to the head trauma.

She said that death would likely not have been instant and that he may have lain unconscious, possibly for hours, before his death. She noted that many of the surface injuries had shown a pattern such as from the ‘sole of a shoe, as in stamping’.

‘ There were seven or eight separate impacts to his head, neck and chest,’ she said. She said he was considerably intoxicated with alcohol, with a blood ethanol level of 340mg per cent.

‘Death can occur from that level of alcohol alone,’ she said.

However, she said there was ‘evidence of a violent and sustained assault’. She added that the attempted burning of his clothing and body appeared to have been ‘peri or post-mortem’.

She gave his cause of death as subdural haemorrhage due to blunt force trauma to the head and neck.

Under cross examination by Patrick Gageby SC, defending Mr Sackalausks, she confirmed that the patterned injuries ‘could have been caused by stamping’.

She said that any rapid movement of the brain could cause the blood vessels to tear. ‘I can’t say which blow, which action, caused his death,’ she said. She agreed that the fact he was drunk and unprepared could be a factor.

‘Being so drunk increases the likelihood of movement of the head,’ she explained. Under cross examination by Michael Delaney SC, defending Mr Power, she said that stamping would not generally cause movement of the brain.

FRIDAY

The trial heard evidence on Friday of interviews conducted by gardaí with Mr Power. Detective Garda John Byrne interviewed Mr Power at Carlow Garda Station on the day the body was found.

Mr Power told gardaí that on the previous night he and the deceased man were arm-wrestling. ‘He slapped me with an open hand in the face, for no reason,’ Mr Power said. Mr Power then told Det Gda Byrne he hit Mr Intembergs a ‘ haymaker on the chin’ causing him to fall to the floor.

He said that he kicked the man while he was on the floor, and that he did not know how many times he kicked him - ten or eleven times or more. He added that his co-accused, Mr Sackalausks, was kicking the man too but not as many times.

Det Gda Byrne said that Mr Power admitted drinking about 16 cans and smoking some crack cocaine in the hours before the alleged murder. Mr Power told gardaí that after kicking Mr Intembergs he then removed the man’s clothes.

‘I don’t know what I was thinking,’ he told the detective. He said he used a lighter to try set fire to the hair on the man’s ‘privates’ and that Mr Sackalausks helped him do this.

Detective Sergeant Steven Delaney told the court that when Mr Power was asked why he wanted to burn Mr Intembergs, he said that he did not know. ‘I was off my head,’ Mr Power told them.

When asked if his actions were intentional, the accused man said, ‘I did not go up to that house to cause any trouble. Unfortunately, things got out of hand completely.’

The jury then heard that Mr Power said there was another man, in the sitting-room, who he also kicked.

The attack on both men lasted twenty minutes to half an hour, he admitted to the detectives, and that he went back and forth from the kitchen to the sitting-room, kicking both men. ‘I frightened myself, I was like an animal,’ he told gardaí.

Detective Garda Donal Lawlor also interviewed Mr Power who told the detective that he thought his co-accused set him up. He said that Mr Sackalausks told him to give Mr Intembergs another kick. He said he thought that was why the man died, the court heard.

The trial continues in front of Ms Justice Isobel Kennedy and a jury of five men and seven women.