FARM MURDER TRIAL TOLD HOW VICTIM WAS ‘RIPPED INTO PIECES’
Family in tears as Central Criminal Court hears how victim was killed in a quiet country lane
A MURDER trial jury has heard gruesome details of how the victim died after his car was rammed by a two-pronged loader.
As well as multiple lacerations and fractures all over his bruised and bloodied body, John Anthony
O’Mahony suffered at least five penetrating wounds – ripping out some of his internal organs.
The Central Criminal Court in Tralee, Co. Kerry, heard yesterday that his heart was found beside him in his car and that his liver was discovered in the footwell. Two prongs went right through Mr O’Mahony as he sat in the driver’s seat. He had gaping holes in the left side of his skull and to his chest and stomach.
Assistant State Pathologist Margaret Bolster revealed the nature of the 73-year-old’s extensive injuries and said he would have died immediately. Farmer Michael Ferris, 63, denies
murdering neighbour Mr O’Mahony at Rattoo, Ballyduff, Co. Kerry, on April 4 last year.
The first gardaí to find the dead man described the scene as ‘horrific’.
Officers said they found it very strange that there was nobody else on the road, and no sign of the transporter.
In their view, Mr O’Mahony had been ‘abandoned’.
The first thing they saw as they turned into a remote and narrow country road in their patrol car was a navy blue car parked against a ditch.
When they approached the 131reg Peugeot 508 they noticed a long stream of debris leading to the car, and puncture marks in the bonnet, and in the roof. The windscreen had two gaping holes on either side of it.
They then looked inside the Peugeot 508 and found Mr
‘Nobody else at the scene’
O’Mahony sitting with his seat belt on in the driver’s seat. He had clearly suffered ‘catastrophic injuries’ to his head and midriff.
During yesterday’s evidence, Mr O’Mahony’s family wept from the public benches.
The court has heard that before 8am on the day, Mr Ferris was driving a teleporter, or loader, ‘with large prongs’ on the narrow country road where the incident happened.
He is alleged to have ‘intentionally rammed’ the Peugeot, resulting in Mr O’Mahony’s death.
Garda Patrick Naughton said: ‘The car was very badly damaged. It had puncture marks on the bonnet and in the roof.’
Of Mr O’Mahony, he said: ‘He had catastrophic injuries.
‘They were horrific injuries, absolutely horrific, to his upper body, and to his skull.’
He added: ‘There was nobody else at the scene, or vehicles. That was the alarming thing.
There was nobody there, nobody to tell us anything. We were quite alarmed by that.’
Garda Alan Crowley preserved the scene, so Garda Naughton went to look for the transporter. He found it after following a 70ft trail of debris to the entrance of a nearby creamery.
He said: ‘On the front fork there was blood, tissue and glass. It was my belief that it had made contact with the car. The car had been pushed by force up the road.’
One of the first people he then spoke to was Pat Ferris, Michael’s brother, who – he recalled – ‘suddenly appeared behind me out of the blue’. He was cautioned and gave no information.
Garda Crowley said: ‘It appeared that this was a repeated act or intrusion into the vehicle. It appeared to be an intentional act and not an accident.’
He said the long trail of debris, tyre marks and damage to the ditches on both sides of the narrow road ‘left me very suspicious about what had happened’.
On Wednesday of this week, Patrick McGrath SC, prosecuting, told the jury how over the years there appeared to have been a falling out between Mr Ferris and Mr O’Mahony.
He said a particular issue arose about the use of a crow banger, which discharges loud bangs at regular intervals to keep crows away from crops at planting and other times. The device went off every four minutes and 26 seconds at times, and was so loud that some neighbours wore ear protectors, the court heard.
Yesterday, Dr Bolster said that when she arrived at the scene later in the day, she observed Mr O’Mahony’s head slumped down against his chest and that the car’s dashboard was ‘driven’ into his legs.
Various organs were ‘protruding’ from a number of injuries and there was blood around the entrance to one of the two puncture marks in the roof of the car.
She said his heart was found beside the driver’s seat, ‘bisected, cut in two’.
The liver was ‘torn, and lacerated, and was found external to his body’ in the footwell of the car by his feet.
Death was caused by polytrauma due to multiple penetrating wounds, including one ‘tearing the heart from the body’.
‘Death would have been immediate,’ she said.
The case continues before the jury next week.
‘Appeared behind me out of the blue’