Guilty of killing partner’s mother
Accused murdered granny in family home likened to a pressure cooker, jury finds
KIERAN Greene brutally murdered his partner’s mother in the suburban family home they shared, which was likened to a ‘pressure cooker’.
Patricia O’Connor, a grandmother-of-seven, was struck in the head at least three times, with such force that her skull caved in.
And the dismembered remains of the 61-year-old were then scattered in 15 different areas over 30km in the Wicklow Mountains.
Greene, 35, was convicted yesterday at the Central Criminal Court of the chilling murder.
This followed a six-week trial during which the jury heard gruesome details of v how Greene viciously beat Mrs O’Connor in the bathroom of the house at Mountainview Park, Rathfarnham, Dublin, on May 29, 2017. .
He then buried her in a shallow grave in Wexford, before returning to chop up the body with a hacksaw, placing the nine separate body parts in black plastic bags and driving to Wicklow.
The jury still has to decide on charges facing his partner Louise O’Connor, 41, and her daughter, Stephanie, 22, as well as Stephanie’s father Keith Johnston, 43.
The three have pleaded not guilty to impeding the apprehension and prosecution of Greene, while knowing or believing him to have murdered Mrs O’Connor.
On the murder charge against Greene, the jurors reached their decision after four-and-a-half hours of deliberation. Their unanimous verdict was received without any obvious reaction by Greene or his co-accused.
Greene had told gardaí that Mrs
O’Connor was always verbally abusing him, Louise and her five children. Nine people shared the crowded four-bedroom house, including Mrs O’Connor’s husband, Augustine.
The court heard of constant tensions, particularly since Mrs O’Connor retired from her job as a cleaner at Beaumont Hospital the previous year, to spend more time in her home and garden.
The DPP accused Greene of coming to a snap decision to kill Mrs O’Connor, out of anger and frustration. Greene walked into Rathfarnham Garda Station in a distressed state on June 12, 2017, after media reports of the discovery of body parts by a picnicking family and a man out for a walk.
He admitted he had ‘done something terrible’ but said he had wanted to protect his children from the woman he described as his mother-in-law. He told the gardaí the guilt was eating him up, and that he would take back her killing if he could. But he also said that Mrs O’Connor had called his family ‘leeches’ and wanted them out of her house. He said he finally felt free from the ‘torment and pain’ she had caused.
Detective Sergeant Lucy Myles recalled that he told her: ‘The stuff up the mountains was me.’
She asked him what he meant, and he said: ‘The body parts that were scattered all over the mountains: I cut them up and threw them all over the place up there.’
The gardaí were slow to believe his confession, the court heard. They had initially thought the body parts belonged to a young man in his 20s.
But a full Garda and Army search was launched, and as the other body parts were retrieved – including the head – they were identified as the remains of Mrs O’Connor. After Greene showed them the site of the shallow grave in Wexford, where they found a strip of patterned fabric and some hair, he was arrested for murder.
Mrs O’Connor had been reported missing by her husband on June 1. The jury heard that he has since pleaded guilty to making that false report, as he knew her to be dead by that time.
Greene gave gardaí two accounts of his last fight with Mrs O’Connor, the court heard. In June 2017, he sobbed as he said he had acted alone, and that all the other members of the family had been out of the house at the time.
He said he was getting out of the shower when she came in. She started shouting and screaming: ‘Get out, get out.’
‘Then she picked up one of the kids’ hurls outside the bathroom door and started hitting me. I grabbed it and hit her back. Then all I remember is coming around and she was lying on the floor with blood everywhere,’ he said.
Asked what he did then, he said: ‘I put her in the boot of the car, and brought her to Wexford and buried her. But a few days later I panicked and I went back and dug her up. I cut her up and scattered her all over the Dublin mountains.’ He also claimed to have thrown out a mop he used to clean up the blood in the house, and his own clothes.
Det Sgt Myles recalled a ‘fidgety’ and ‘upset’ Greene said: ‘I handed myself in because I feel terrible about what I did.’
In a further interview, Greene, who is the father of Louise’s three youngest children, told a detective that there had been a long ten years of abusive behaviour from Mrs O’Connor. He said they told Tusla and a health nurse, but that no-one helped.
When he was charged, he said he had acted in self-defence.
In December, the court heard, Greene changed his story. He summoned detectives to Cloverhill Prison, where he was in custody, and said it had not been him who dealt the fatal blow.
In this Garda interview, Greene said: ‘I feel I should not be taking the blame for all of this. I feel I was set up. Because my missus and Keith are going back out. They set me up. It’s not fair. I am facing a murder trial. They are out there and I am taking the rap for it.’
Greene repeated his June claims about getting into a fight with Mrs O’Connor and the use of a hurley in the bathroom of the house.
However, this time he said that after landing two blows himself, Mrs O’Connor had winded him in the stomach with the hurley. He said he was on the ground when he heard Patricia’s husband Gus
O’Connor come in. The court has heard that the two were separated a long time before, but that they now shared the house.
‘He came into the bathroom, giving out to her. He said, “What the f*** are you doing?”’ Greene told gardaí.
‘Mr O’Connor had something in his hand, a black bar or a crowbar, and he hit her in the head two times, and she fell to the floor,’ Greene also said.
‘He said, “I am defending you so you can take the rap for this.”’
Greene alleged that Louise O’Connor had been told what had happened, and that she had said: ‘We can’t leave her here.’
He later said that Louise had said: ‘Get rid of her.’
He said everything he had told the gardaí was true, adding: ‘I honestly did not do it. I will swear on anybody’s life. I did not do it. You have to believe me.’
Greene’s counsel, Conor Devally, told the jury in closing that they should acquit his client, based on his second account.
He said his client had wrongly believed himself to be a martyr when he made his first confession, in the mistaken belief that his children could stay in the house with their mother.
But the court has heard that Augustine O’Connor served an eviction notice on his daughter, Louise, and that none of the family now live in the house in Mountainview Park.
Greene’s sentencing will take place once all the jury’s verdicts have been reached.
The jury will continue its remaining deliberations today.
‘On the floor with blood everywhere’
Deliberations to continue