‘Karen is after smothering my child’
A DISTRESSED father went rushing back to a house where he had socialised earlier that evening and shouted that his girlfriend had smothered his toddler, a murder trial has heard.
Karen Harrington is on trial charged with the murder of two-yearold Santina Cawley at Elderwood Park in the Boreenmanna Road area of the city on July 5, 2019.
Harrington, 37, was in a relationship with Michael Cawley, the father of the deceased, at the time of the alleged offence.
Eric Okunala had been in the company of the couple earlier that evening at the home of his partner Martina Higgins, also in the Elderwood complex.
Mr Okunala said he was only acquainted with Mr Cawley. However, he knew Harrington well through her friendship with Ms Higgins. He told the jury that he never got the impression that she was a violent person.
Mr Okunala said the mood at the start of the evening was fine. However, the atmosphere eventually soured and Mr Cawley had taken his shirt off and was trying to fight him.
He said Mr Cawley had given the impression that he didn’t trust Harrington. Amid tension the accused had left her friend Ms Higgins home at Elderwood Drive at 1.25am on July 5 and returned to her own home at the time at Elderwood Park. Mr Okunala said that Mr Cawley left shortly after 3am.
He told how Mr Cawley appeared back at the flat at about 5am. He said: “He was banging on the door and screaming: ‘Karen is after smothering my child.’”
Mr Cawley also gave evidence in the case. He became emotional and broke down crying in the box when the defence showed him CCTV footage of himself and his daughter Santina shopping the day before she was found critically injured.
The toddler had sustained extensive bruising to every part of her body, fractures to her skull and ribs, damage to her spine and a brain injury. Clumps of her hair were found on the apartment floor.
Mr Cawley said he had left Santina with his partner in the past and that the pair had got on well.
He told the court that when he returned to Harrington’s apartment shortly after 5am he found kitchen chairs on the floor, blood and glass broken.
He then found his daughter critically injured and naked under a blanket. The emergency services were called and Santina was taken to Cork University Hospital where she died
Dad tells of his horror at finding little girl critically injured in flat
at 9.20am. Sean Gillane, SC, for the prosecution, had earlier told the trial that Santina had devastating injuries from which there was no hope of recovery.
The trial had heard Harrington – of Lakelands Crescent in Mahon in Cork – had left the Higgins apartment at Elderwood Drive at 1.25am and returned to her own flat at Elderwood Park.
Mr Cawley returned to the flat at 3.05am on July 5 but left five minutes later in order to retrieve a forgotten phone at the apartment of Ms Higgins. When Mr Okunala told him to come back to get his phone the following day he ended up leaving the complex to go to Cork city centre in a bid to find his cousin.
He was tracked on CCTV at various intervals in the city centre and near the Elderwood complex between 3am and 5am as he attempted without success to find his cousin who had come from Limerick.
Mr Cawley told the jury that when he returned home shortly after 5am he was met outside Harrington’s apartment by her next door neighbour Dylan Olney who asked if it was his baby was in the company of Miss Harrington inside the flat.
He stated that Mr Olney told him that Harrington had been “screaming and roaring” at the baby. Mr Cawley stated that he was deeply distressed by what he saw when he turned the key to gain access to the property.
He said: “I see chairs on the floor and blood on the floor and glass broken.” He told how when he saw his injured child he asked Harrington to call an ambulance but she “just ran away.”
The trial also heard evidence from Ms Higgins who said that she and the accused had had a little to drink and smoked a joint at the Atlantic Pond on the evening before Santina was found critically injured.
Ms Higgins said that Mr Cawley had picked them up. At about 10pm on July 4 2019 the adults and Santina, who was in the car, went back to the Elderwood complex. They went to the home of Ms Higgins where a few drinks were had. She said Santina was
playing with balls in a play pool in the flat and Ms Higgins partner Mr Okunala was also present. The mood was “grand” but changed when Mr Cawley got a call from a cousin. Ms Higgins said he wanted to invite his cousin to stay in the apartment.
Neither Harrington or Ms Higgins wanted this to happen and the defendant and Mr Cawley started to argue at which stage Harrington left.
Ms Higgins said when Mr Cawley left after 3am he had Santina resting on a shoulder. The next she heard of him was when he started banging on her door screaming.
She said: “He was saying ‘Santina, my child my child. Karen killed my child. She is dead.’ I got a shock. He [Michael] sounded frightened.”
The case before Mr Justice Michael Mcgrath continues next Tuesday.