Kieran Greene found guilty of murdering Patricia O’Connor
A jury took just under four-anda-half hours to find a Dublin man guilty of murdering his ex-partner’s mother.
Kieran Greene (35) had pleaded not guilty to murdering Patricia O’Connor (61) at her home in Mountainview Park, Rathfarnham, Dublin 14 on May 29, 2017.
However, shortly after 4 p.m. yesterday (Tuesday) afternoon, the jury returned a unanimous verdict of guilty.
Mrs O’Connor’s dismembered remains were found scattered across the Dublin and Wicklow mountains nearly three years ago.
The jury will continue to consider the cases of the Mrs O’Connor’s daughter Louise O’Connor (41) and granddaughter Stephanie O’Connor (22), both of Millmount Court, Dundrum Road, Dublin 14, and Louise O’Connor’s ex-partner Keith Johnston (43), of Avonbeg Gardens, Tallaght, Dublin 24, who are all charged with impeding the apprehension or prosecution of Mr Greene, knowing or believing him to have committed an arrestable offence, to wit the murder of Mrs O’Connor on May 29, 2017.
The jury began its deliberations on Monday afternoon after a number of days of listening to closing arguments and to Mr Justice Paul McDermott’s charge at the Central Criminal Court.
TUESDAY (AFTERNOON)
The man accused of murdering his partner’s mother has been portrayed as both ‘a moron’ and ‘Machiavelli himself ’, his defence counsel told the jury, adding that the description ‘doesn’t add up’.
Conor Devally SC said his client had a ‘developmental difficulty’ and was portrayed as a ‘moron’ and ‘a donkey’ yet he supposedly buried retired hospital worker Patricia O’Connor in a shallow grave in the middle of the night.
He suggested to the jury that the deceased’s husband, Augustine ‘Gus’ O’Connor, was ‘intimately involved’ in ensuring his wife’s body was disposed of.
The trial has heard that the body of Mrs O’Connor was dismembered into 15 separate parts that were found at nine different locations over a 30km range in the Dublin and Wicklow mountains between June 10 and 14, 2017.
Former Depute State Pathologist, Dr Michael Curtis, has given evidence that Mrs O’Connor’s head was struck a minimum of three blows with a solid implement and the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head.
Evidence has been given that Mr Greene walked into Rathfarnham Garda Station on June 12, 2017 and told a detective that he had done ‘something terrible’ and dismembered the body of Mrs O’Connor on his own.
In his June interview with gardaí, Mr Greene said he was in the bathroom when Mrs O’Connor walked in and hit him with a hurl on the wrist, saying ‘Get out, Get out’. Mr Greene said he grabbed the hurl from her, hit her and did not know want happened next as when he woke up there was blood everywhere and he panicked.
The trial heard that six months after he was charged with her murder, Mr Greene changed his account of killing and dismembering his partner’s mother. He told gardaí on December 9 that he had taken ‘the rap’ and felt he was being set-up, as his girlfriend Louise O’Connor subsequently started going back out with her ex-boyfriend Keith Johnston.
In the December interview, Mr Greene told detectives that Mrs O’Connor attacked him with a hurley. He said Mrs O’Connor’s husband, Augustine ‘Gus’ O’Connor, came into the bathroom after he fell to the ground and gave out to his wife saying: ‘What the f *ck are you doing?’ Mr Greene told detectives that Mr O’Connor had killed his wife using a crowbar and he [Mr Greene] had taken the blame.
Giving his closing statement on Tuesday, defence counsel Conor Devally SC, for Mr Greene, said his client had given two accounts of how Mrs O’Connor had died.
Mr Greene’s interviews from June, where he contended he had done everything on his own, were ‘a whole pack of lies’, said Mr Devally, adding that despite this the prosecution wanted to treat this as a full account of murder.
‘If this is a full and thorough confession of murder, no one else would be on trial so obviously its riddled with lies,’ he submitted.
Mr Devally told the jury that if the June interview was such a ‘thorough and truthful confession’, then no one else would be on trial. He said the prosecution wanted the jury to ‘cherry pick the bit’ that goes with his guilt.
‘You have been told in every other aspect of the case that what he says is false and are yet being told it must be true about’ his June account, he submitted.
Questioning the evidence, he asked the jurors how Mr Greene could have killed Mrs O’Connor, removed her body from the house and grotesquely cut her up without anyone knowing or helping him. ‘Has he the capacity to do it all on his own and tell such intricate lies?’ asked the barrister. He said his client was ‘well primed by others’ to go to Rathfarnham Garda Station on June 12. The lies he told gardaí in those interviews were confusing, he said, adding that he was not very good at them.
He drew the jury’s attention to Joan Greene’s evidence, where she testified that her son was assessed when he was in first class in primary school and found to be ‘two and a half years behind’. Mr Devally submitted that Mrs Greene had given evidence to show the deficits under which her son laboured, he said. The barrister called this a developmental difficulty rather than an academic one.
Mr Devally told the jurors that Mr Greene had been portrayed in the trial as detached, ‘part of the furniture’, a bit deficient, ‘a moron’ and maybe a bit of ‘a donkey’ yet ‘somehow remarkably he had gone off to bury’ Mrs O’Connor in the middle of the night.
Going through the evidence in the trial, Mr Devally said a decision was made very quickly on the evening of May 29 that the children could not see anything and so they left the house and went to the park with Louise and Stephanie at 6.53 p.m.
Mr Devally said the jury knew that Mr O’Connor did not go to the park immediately with the others and there was reason for this.
‘Maybe Gus had to take the crowbar with him, someone had to dispose of that,’ said Mr Devally. Counsel said Mr Greene was supposed to be acting solo in the disposal of Mrs O’Connor but he was suggesting to the jury that Mr O’Connor was intimately involved in ensuring ‘it was done’.
Evidence has been given that Mr O’Connor was originally part of the trial but shortly before it began, he pleaded guilty to reporting his wife Mrs O’Connor as a missing person to gardai at Rathfarnham Garda Station, Dublin 14 on June 1, 2017, when he knew that she was already dead.
Counsel suggested to the jury that no one else was interested in protecting Mr Greene and if anyone was going to be defended it was not his client. Mr Greene was ‘persuaded’ to take the blame and said he would take it all on himself, he said, adding that his children would then have a mother and a grandfather with a house.
‘His state of mind in June is to ensure that no one else is implicated. Do you think it was his idea to get someone else dressed up, do you really think he could have done that?’ he asked.
Mr Devally said his client wanted to tell the truth when he came forward to gardaí in December. He asked the jury was it reasonably possible that Mr Greene did not kill Mrs O’Connor as much of what was said in his December interview had ‘an awful lot of truth in it’.
The barrister said his client’s ‘martyrdom’ was no longer of any purpose in December as the others had been arrested and he had not been able to protect his children, the only thing he held so dear.
There was 273 jobs in the ‘garda jobs books’ before Mr Greene gave his ‘utterly different’ account to gardaí in December, said Mr Devally, pointing out that the jobs in the book ended at 290 following his client’s December confession. The lawyer submitted that gardaí were saying ‘don’t trust the December interview and trust the ones in June’ and all the steps taken from then on concerned Mr Johnston, despite Mr O’Connor taking centre stage in Mr Greene’s December interview.
‘Do they have the interest to ask the questions that might strengthen the credibility that it was not Mr Greene who inflicted the fatal blow?’ he asked the jury, adding that gardaí did not want to know who had helped him with his story.
He asked the jury to consider the reasonable possibility that his client did not kill Mrs O’Connor and much of what he said in December was true. ‘In December he said he didn’t kill her, in June he said he did everything. June is not accurate, there is a lot of truth of what was said in December,’ he suggested
‘He is a moron and useless and yet he is Machiavelli himself, a mastermind. It doesn’t add up,’ he said and urged the jury to acquit his client of murder.
WEDNESDAY
The lawyer for a 22-year-old woman accused of disguising herself as her grandmother as a ‘ruse’ to conceal her death has told her trial jury that there is ‘no hard and direct evidence’ she was away from the house during the relevant period of time.
The court also heard that there was ‘no smoking gun’ establishing the guilt of the deceased’s daughter Louise O’Connor and the prosecution had engaged in ‘wild speculation’.
Giving his closing statement, defence counsel Garnet Orange SC for Stephanie O’Connor, said Russian author Leo Tolstoy in his novel Anna Karenina had commented that ‘all happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.’ Mr Orange said considering the activities in the house at Mountainview, how correct Tolstoy was when he made these observations.
Mr Orange told the jurors that his client was Stephanie O’Connor, who was sitting in the middle of the dock, ‘with the odd coloured hair’, flanked by her parents.
It is the State’s case that, in order to cover up the alleged murder, Stephanie dressed up as her grandmother as ‘a ruse’ to pretend that Mrs O’Connor had stormed out of the house on the night of May 29, 2017.
Evidence has been given that a female, not identified to the jury, can be seen leaving the front of the house in CCTV footage at 9.34 p.m. on May 29 and walking quickly down the drive way with a suitcase in her hand. The trial has heard that at 10.05 p.m. that night, a female with a suitcase appears at the left-hand side of the house and goes in the back door. She closes the back door a minute later.
Regarding Stephanie, he said the case against her was based on ‘circular logic’. He drew the jury’s attention to the fact that gardaí were ‘clearly troubled’ that nobody could identify the person going down the steps on May 29 and they had sought a height analysis report. Yet this report was not made known to the defence until after the trial had begun, which he said amounted to ‘confirmation bias’.
Going through the evidence in the trial, Mr Orange said that Mr Greene’s December interview should be treated as lies and it had brought ‘everyone’s house tumbling down’.
Mr Orange noted that when Louise, Stephanie and her children arrived back at the house on May 29 at 9.34 p.m., they are seen ambling up the driveway, the children were first to arrive and no attempt was made to hold them back.
Mr Orange suggested that there was a frailty in the CCTV footage as it did not cover the front porch of the house.
Mr Orange asked the jury to consider that if Stephanie knew the CCTV footage covered the front and rear garden, then ‘why on earth would she allow herself ’ to be later viewed walking through the back door ‘carrying the very props’ that were used to set up ‘the charade in the first place’.
‘How convenient for her to drop the ball so spectacularly having gone to such trouble some time earlier,’ he commented. Evidence has been given that Stephanie was aware that the CCTV system covered the front and back garden of the house.
He argued that there was no hard and direct evidence which showed his client was away from the house during the
relevant period of time.
Counsel suggested to the jury that whatever account ‘came to Stephanie’, had come from Mr Greene. ‘It is far more likely Mr Greene told them that while he participated in the circumstances leading to Mrs O’Connor’s death, he had not acted in a criminal way,’ he said.
Mr Orange said a laptop was turned on in Stephanie’s room at 10.10 p.m. on May 29, where Anime cartoons were viewed and a CV was uploaded by way of a job application. He submitted that the laptop had not looked up ‘alibis for murder or decomposing bodies’. He asked the jury if the uploading of a CV and making plans for the future was evidence of ‘a guilty mind at work’.
In summary, Mr Orange quoted Harper Lee and his novel To Kill a Mockingbird saying: ‘You never understand a person until you consider things from his point of view’.
He told the jurors that if they accept the prosecution’s case that it was Stephanie ‘on the steps’ of the house that night, then they must consider her state of mind and what she was aware of.
Defence counsel Michael Bowman SC, for Louise O’Connor, said his client’s case was ‘very different’ to the other cases. There was ‘no smoking gun’ establishing the guilt of his client on May 29, he said, adding that an evidential deficit existed.
The prosecution had closed its case in 15 minutes as they only had ‘15 minutes worth of talk’ and engaged in ‘wild speculation’, he said, adding that this was not evidence upon which the jury could act.
The only person Louise could be protecting when gardaí confront her with the CCTV footage was her daughter Stephanie, he said.
‘Is it possible that if lies are told, they are being told by a mother to protect her daughter who may have found herself involved in this?’ he asked the jury.
Mr Bowman said Louise’s brother, Richard O’Connor, had given evidence that his sister tried to dissuade him from reporting Mrs O’Connor missing. The son of the deceased had agreed this information was not in the statement he gave to gardaí on June 14, he said.
Mr Bowman said this would have been in Richard O’Connor’s statement had he told gardaí, and detectives would then have been able to put it to Louise in her interviews.
‘She did not say this as it did not happen,’ emphasised the barrister. He said there was ‘animus’ in the family because Richard blamed his sister for what happened to their mother, as Mr Greene was in the house as a consequence of their relationship.
He said Louise, a mother-offive, was rendered homeless as a result of what happened in the house and Richard had been ‘a tad judgmental’, when she moved back into house.
In summary, he said there was no evidence against Louise in relation to the allegations made against her and urged the jury to acquit.
The State’s case against a handyman, who is accused of impeding an investigation into the dismemberment of a retired grandmother, is ‘clutching at straws’ and there is no evidence of ‘concealment, lies or secrecy’, his defence barrister told the jury on Wednesday afternoon.
James Dwyer SC said a very specific allegation was being made against his client, Keith Johnston, and it was a classic case of ‘picking the plums and leaving the duff ’.
Counsel also said today that the man accused of murdering Patricia O’Connor, whose dismembered remains were found scattered at nine different locations in the Dublin and Wicklow mountains, had engaged in ‘scorched earth policy calculated to blame as many people as possible’.
Addressing the jury in his closing statement, defence counsel Mr Dwyer, representing Mr Johnston, said they had not heard much from him during the trial as there was not very much evidence about his client.
He acknowledged that his case was different to the other three accused as it was not suggested that Mr Johnston was present in house on May 29 when Mrs O’Connor died. Counsel went on to tell the jury that they must ignore much of the evidence in Mr Johnston’s case.
He noted that the prosecution case against Mr Johnston was ‘full of speculation’ and in order to convict his client the jury must be satisfied that he knew or believed that Mr Greene had unlawfully killed Mrs O’Connor and that this state of mind existed before or at the time he went on the ‘shopping spree’.
It is the State’s case against Mr Johnston that Mrs O’Connor was already lying dead in a shallow grave in Wexford but not yet dismembered when he assisted Mr Greene in purchasing various DIY items. The accused man accepted he went on a ‘shopping spree’ with Mr Greene the day before Mrs O’Connor’s body was found dismembered in the Wicklow mountains but told gardaí he had not ‘put two and two together’.
The barrister said Mr Greene had given two accounts, the first where he said he killed Mrs O’Connor in self-defence and the second where he said Augustine ‘Gus’ O’Connor had killed his wife.
If Mr Johnston believed Mr Greene’s first account then he should be found not guilty, said the lawyer, and if his client believed the second account, he should also be found not guilty because he had gone on the shopping trip, knowing or believing Mr Greene had not killed the retired hospital worker.
However, Mr Dwyer submitted that one of these accounts was entirely false. ‘We have no idea what Mr Johnston believed or knew and that is classic speculation,’ he pointed out.
Mr Dwyer said it did not need to be asked why Mr Greene had wrongly accused Mr Johnston, as his client had stepped into ‘his fathering role’ and the accused believed a relationship was developing between Louise O’Connor and her former partner, Mr Johnston. Mr Greene’s mother, Joan Greene, had even described her son under oath as paranoid, he remarked.
Mr Greene told gardaí while on remand in Cloverhill Prison on December 9 that he had taken ‘the rap’ and felt he was being set-up, as his girlfriend Louise O’Connor subsequently started going back out with her ex-boyfriend Keith Johnston.
The December interview given by Mr Greene, where he implicated the other three accused, was ‘scorched earth policy calculated to blame as many people as possible,’ said Mr Dwyer.
On December 9, Mr Greene told gardaí that Mr Johnston had ‘made a plan’ and they had purchased various tools in several DIY stores on June 9 before driving to Wexford that night, where Mr Johnston spent three to four hours dismembering Mrs O’Connor’s body. He said Mr Johnston then directed him through the Dublin mountains where they disposed of her body parts and he was persuaded to take the blame.
Mr Dwyer said his client did not go to Wexford on the night of June 9 and the evidence from his mobile phone demonstrated this. ‘It’s consistent with Mr Johnston being at home and utterly inconsistent with any suggestion that he went to Wexford,’ he submitted. Evidence has been given in the trial that Mr Johnston’s mobile phone ‘tallied’ with the CCTV footage from June 9 and had pinged off a mast near his house in Tallaght on the night.
Mr Dwyer said that much had been made of the ‘closeness’ between Mr Greene and Mr Johnston. The prosecution used the phrase ‘co-dependency’ to describe their relationship to suggest Mr Johnston was ‘in cahoots’ with Mr Greene, he said. The barrister submitted that his client was a good father and regularly visited Mountainview but stressed that he did not live there and was not part of the family. The barrister said the suggestion of a friendship between the men does not help one bit.
He said the jury could not speculate as to when Mr Johnston learned about the unlawful killing and his client told gardaí that he found out about it on June 12, 2017 and encouraged Mr Greene to go to gardaí. ‘There is no evidence to suggest he is wrong about that,’ he said.
Mr Dwyer indicated that Mr Johnston had not gone to Mountainview until June 1 and evidence that no work had been done on the house in the previous ten years was incorrect. The son of the deceased, Richard O’Connor, gave evidence that the house was ‘constantly done up and painted’, he said.
He also pointed to interviews given by Mr Johnston to gardaí in which he said that he had a nagging feeling he was cleaning up a crime scene. Mr Dwyer suggested that this was not something one would say to gardaí if they were guilty of something.
Summarising his client’s case, Mr Dwyer said a very specific allegation was being made against Mr Johnston and it was a classic case of ‘picking the plums and leaving the duff ’.
Mr Dwyer submitted that on a reading of the evidence, it seemed things were being kept from Mr Johnston. ‘At the very least it raises the possibility that Mr Johnston was kept in the dark and did not know what Mr Greene was planning on this gruesome trip,’ he said.
In conclusion, he said the prosecution was ‘clutching at straws’ and there was ‘no concealment, no lies and no secrecy’ by Mr Johnston.
‘This is a gruesome case where a gruesome crime was committed by someone. Gardaí carried out an enormous investigation and cast the net wide as to all the people connected to the house, but if you look at the evidence with any scrutiny, you will see it simply is not there so I invite you to return a not guilty verdict,’ he said.
FRIDAY
A judge has told the jury in the trial of a man accused of murdering his partner’s mother, whose dismembered remains were found scattered across the Dublin and Wicklow mountains, that they can consider the issue of self-defence.
Mr Justice McDermott said the jury had heard that Augustine
‘Gus’ O’Connor had entered a guilty plea in relation to impeding the apprehension or prosecution of an offender in October 2018.
Whilst this was ‘the same type of offence’ which Louise O’Connor, her daughter Stephanie O’Connor and Keith Johnston are charged with, he warned the jury that this was ‘totally irrelevant’ to them. It was not evidence in the case and it cannot be regarded as such, he said.
The trial heard that Augustine ‘Gus’ O’Connor was originally part of the trial but shortly before it began, he pleaded guilty to reporting his wife Mrs O’Connor as a missing person to gardai at Rathfarnham Garda Station, Dublin 14 on June 1, 2017, when he knew that she was already dead.
Furthermore, the judge said the nature of this case could be described as ‘shocking’ because of the manner in which Mrs O’Connor’s body was desecrated and asked the jury to ‘park this’ and ‘leave it outside the door’. He told the jury not to allow emotion get in the way during their deliberations and to carry out a ‘clinical analysis’ of the case by relying solely on the facts.
Mr Justice McDermott said it was up to the jury to decide what weight they gave the interviews of the four accused in the case.
‘It is your determination what you accept and reject in those interviews,’ he remarked, repeating the fact that what one accused said about another co-accused was not evidence against that other person.
‘If an accused makes an admission to guilt that cannot be used as to the guilt of his co-accused,’ he warned.
He said each offence was separate and in effect there were four separate trials. ‘Compartmentalise what is said,’ he advised.
The judge said the prosecution had relied on lies told by each accused in interviews to gardaí. He said people lie for many reasons, including shame about one’s behaviour, a desire to conceal disgraceful behaviour from one’s partner and out of panic or confusion. The prosecution had to establish that there was no ‘innocent explanation for the lie’, he said.
Mr Justice McDermott said the prosecution must have established beyond a reasonable doubt what is alleged against each of the four accused.
‘If you come to the conclusion that statements tending to indicate innocence may reasonable be true, you will acquit,’ he indicated.
The offence of murder is a ‘most serious charge’ and the prosecution must establish that a human being was killed by another, he said. The judge pointed out that it was an issue in the case whether Mr Greene had killed Mrs O’Connor as he made a statement to gardaí in December saying he did not kill her. If the jury was not satisfied that Mr Greene had killed Mrs O’Connor then that was the end of the case and they must return a not guilty verdict, he outlined.
The judge highlighted that Mr Greene’s defence had relied heavily on the second statement he made to gardaí in December, which the judge said was suggestive of the fact that Mr Greene did not kill Mrs O’Connor and her husband Mr O’Connor was the person who struck the fatal blow. If the jury chose not to rely upon the December interview and they were satisfied that Mr Greene had killed Mrs O’Connor, they would have to consider if Mr Greene intended to kill or cause serious injury or if there was a defence of self-defence open to him in the evidence.
Mr Justice McDermott stressed to the jury that Mr Greene’s defence was that he did not do it and he [the judge] was not seeking to undermine his defence with self-defence. However, the issue of self-defence fell to be considered as a result of Mr Greene’s acceptance of hitting Mrs O’Connor repeatedly in his June interview, said the judge, and therefore he was putting it to the jury as part of his obligation in relation to the fairness of the trial.
He told the jury they would need to consider the circumstances of his June interview, where Mr Greene said Mrs O’Connor attacked him with a hurley and his response to that. If Mr Greene used more force than he knew to be reasonably necessary, he was guilty of murder and manslaughter was not available to him. However, if he used the necessary force required in the circumstances, he was guilty of manslaughter. The judge said the issue of self-defence depended very much on the jury’s assessment of the statements which Mr Greene had made.
The judge said there were three verdicts the jury could return in relation to the murder charge against Mr Greene; namely, guilty of murder, not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter or not guilty.
‘If Mr O’Connor did not do it, did Mr Greene have the requisite intent to do it or was he acting in self-defence, which reduced the count of murder to manslaughter?’ he summarised.
The judge said the other offence of impeding an investigation, which Louise O’Connor, Stephanie O’Connor and Keith Johnston were charged with, was a separate offence and entirely distinct from the murder charge.
He said there were three verdicts the jury could return in relation to this charge of impeding the apprehension or prosecution of Mr Greene, knowing or believing him to have committed an arrestable offence. These were: not guilty,
guilty of knowing that Mr Greene had committed murder or in the alternative, guilty of knowing that Mr Greene had committed manslaughter.
FRIDAY
Mr Justice Paul McDermott continued charging the jury at the Central Criminal Court on Friday, with deliberations not expected to begin until Monday.
Continuing his charge, Mr Justice McDermott said if the jury reached a conclusion that Mr Greene had told lies in his second statement in December 2017, they were then entitled to ask themselves why such lies were told and if it was for the purpose of avoiding guilt.
However, the judge said the jury was aware that tools were not thrown out of Mr Greene’s car on Military Road as set out by him in his first statement in June. The judge pointed out that two hacksaws and a hatchet had been found in Dodder Valley Park on January 2, 2018 as a result of Mr Greene’s interview to gardaí in December 2017. These lies favoured the defence’s suggestion that Mr Greene’s second statement is to be relied on, he said.
The judge told the jury that they knew Mr Greene was a ‘slower person’ and had been described as a ‘fool’. Mr Greene’s defence team have said it was impossible to believe he was a person who could have dealt with the situation in the way he claimed in his June statement. He reminded the jury that they knew Mr Greene was also a ‘slow learner’, who had required assistance in school.
Mr Greene’s mother Joan Greene gave evidence that her son was assessed when he was about seven years old and found to be about ‘two and a half years behind’.
Mr Justice McDermott said Mr Greene’s defence team had also criticised gardaí for ‘the lack of follow-up’ after he made his December statement. It was a matter for the jury whether these criticisms were warranted and justified, said the judge, and they should decide the weight to be attached.
In his closing speech, Conor Devally SC for Mr Greene, said 273 jobs appeared in the ‘garda jobs’ book’ before Mr Greene gave his ‘utterly different’ account to gardaí in December. He pointed out that the jobs in the book ended at 290 following his client’s December confession. The lawyer submitted that gardaí were saying ‘don’t trust the December interview and trust the ones in June’ and all the steps taken from then on concerned Mr Johnston, despite Mr O’Connor taking centre stage in Mr Greene’s December interview.
The judge said what was at issue in Mr Greene’s interviews concerned ‘the motivation’ to tell a ‘whole pack of lies’ in June and then tell gardaí the truth in December.
Mr Justice McDermott reminded the jury to consider each count separately in respect of all four accused. The prosecution’s case was said to be the subject of ‘building blocks and various strands’ that, when taken together, created a conclusion of guilt to the standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, he outlined.
He explained that this was known as ‘circumstantial evidence’ and the State’s case was that the ‘combined weight of the evidence’ was important. However, the judge said if there was another ‘rational and innocent explanation’ that pointed to the accused’s innocence, they had to adopt this.
He also emphasised to the jury that they should not have regard to anything Mr Greene said about the other three accused in his interviews. He again advised them to compartmentalise each case.
Mr Justice McDermott told the jury that he would ‘leave over the very last element’ of his charge until Monday. It would take ‘a relatively short time’ and they could then retire to consider their verdicts, he said.
MONDAY
The jury has begun deliberating in the trial of a 35-year-old man accused of murdering a retired grandmother, whose dismembered remains were found scattered across the Dublin and Wicklow mountains nearly three years ago.
Mr Justice Paul McDermott concluded his charge in the Central Criminal Court trial of Kieran Greene, who has pleaded not guilty to murdering Patricia O’Connor (61) at her home in Mountainview Park, Rathfarnham, Dublin 14 on May 29, 2017.
The deceased’s daughter Louise O’Connor (41) and granddaughter Stephanie O’Connor (22), both of Millmount Court, Dundrum Road, Dublin 14, and Louise O’Connor’s ex-partner Keith Johnston (43), of Avonbeg Gardens, Tallaght, Dublin 24 are all charged with impeding the apprehension or prosecution of Mr Greene, knowing or believing him to have committed an arrestable offence, to wit the murder of Mrs O’Connor on May 29, 2017.
The six-week trial has heard that the body of Mrs O’Connor was dismembered into 15 separate parts that were found at nine different locations over a 30km range in the Dublin and Wicklow mountains between June 10 and 14, 2017.
Former Depute State Pathologist, Dr Michael Curtis, has given evidence that Mrs O’Connor’s head was struck a minimum of three blows with a solid implement and the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head.
Addressing the jury this afternoon, Mr Justice McDermott said that one juror was unavailable for the rest of the trial and he had to decide if they could be allowed to consider the case notwithstanding her absence. The judge said he had taken the liberty of discharging the juror from service and the case will proceed with a jury of eleven persons.
In considering the evidence, he reminded the jury to consider each count separately in respect of all four accused. He told the jurors that they must avoid placing any value on anything Mr Greene said about the other three accused saying: ‘That is only evidence in his own case’.
If the jury reach a verdict that Mr Greene is not guilty then the other three accused must be acquitted, he outlined.
The jury can return three verdicts in relation to the murder charge against Mr Greene, namely; guilty of murder, not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter or not guilty.
There are three verdicts the jury can return in relation to Louise O’Connor, Stephanie O’Connor and Keith Johnston impeding the apprehension or prosecution of Mr Greene, knowing or believing him to have committed an arrestable offence. These are: not guilty, guilty of knowing that Mr Greene had committed murder or in the alternative, guilty of knowing that Mr Greene had committed manslaughter.
‘He told the jurors that they may find it useful to firstly consider the case against Mr Greene and then move onto the separate trials of his three co-accused, who are charged with impeding the apprehension or prosecution of Mr Greene.
‘It is a matter for you as to how you conduct your business,’ he said, adding that the exhibits in the case will be made available to them.
The judge also told the jurors that if a verdict is reached on any count then they should enter that count in the box on the issue paper.
Mr Justice McDermott said the jury must be unanimous in their decision in respect of the four counts before sending them away to begin deliberations at 3.15 p.m.
The jury of six men and five women returned at 4.53 p.m. this evening and the judge told them that he had a number of appropriate things to say to them.
Mr Justice McDermott asked the jury to come back at 10.30 a.m. on Tuesday to continue their deliberations.
Mr Greene has given two accounts of Mrs O’Connor’s death. In an interview with gardai in June 2017, Mr Greene said he was in the bathroom when Mrs O’Connor walked in and hit him with a hurl on the wrist, saying ‘Get out, Get out’. Mr Greene said he grabbed the hurl from her, hit her and did not know want happened next as when he woke up there was blood everywhere and he panicked.
The trial has heard that six months after he was charged with her murder, Mr Greene changed his account of killing and dismembering his partner’s mother. He told gardaí in December 2017 that he had taken ‘the rap’ and felt he was being set-up, as his girlfriend Louise O’Connor subsequently started going back out with her ex-boyfriend Mr Johnston.
Mr Greene also told detectives in his December interview that Mrs O’Connor attacked him with a hurley. However, he said Mrs O’Connor’s husband, Augustine ‘Gus’ O’Connor, came into the bathroom after he fell to the ground and admonished his wife saying: ‘What the f*ck are you doing?’
Mr Greene told detectives that Mr O’Connor had killed his wife using a crowbar and he [Mr Greene] had taken the blame.
Mother-of-five Louise O’Connor has pleaded not guilty to agreeing to or acquiescing in her daughter Stephanie O’Connor disguising herself as Patricia O’Connor at Mountainview Park, Rathfarnham, Dublin 14 on May 29, 2017 in order to conceal the fact that Patricia O’Connor was dead.
Stephanie O’Connor has pleaded not guilty to disguising herself as Mrs O’Connor at Mountainview Park, Rathfarnham, Dublin 14 at a point in time after her murder on May 29, 2017 in order to conceal the fact that she was already dead.
Mr Johnston has pleaded not guilty to assisting Mr Greene in the purchase of various implements at Woodie’s, Mr Price, B&Q and Shoe Zone, Tallaght, Dublin 24 on June 9, 2017, which were to be used in the concealment of the remains of Mrs O’Connor.
TUESDAY
Late on Tuesday afternoon, the jury found father-of-three Kieran Greene guilty of murdering retired grandmother
Patricia O’Connor.
The jury took four hours and 24 minutes to come to their unanimous verdict.
As the jury filed back into court at 4 p.m., the forewoman had the issue paper in her hand and gave it to the registrar.
Mr Justice Paul McDermott then asked the jurors to return to the court at 10.30 a.m. today (Wedneday). However, as the jury got up to leave for the day, the registrar noticed that a count had been entered in one of the boxes on the issue paper. The judge then called the 11 jurors back and asked them to take their seats again.
The registrar asked the forewoman of the jury if they had reached a decision on any count upon which they were all agreed. The forewoman replied ‘yes’ and the registrar proceeded to read out Greene’s unanimous guilty verdict.
Mr Justice McDermott told the jury that they could return to the Central Criminal Court tomorrow morning to continue their deliberations in relation the deceased’s daughter Louise O’Connor, her granddaughter Stephanie O’Connor and Keith Johnston.
Earlier in the day, the jury had requested an easel and flipchart and queried how to view CCTV footage that had been played during the trial.
Mr Justice Paul McDermott had told the jurors that he would organise those ‘two practical matters’ in their absence and that exhibits were also available if needed.