MAN ACCUSED OF MURDERING MOTHER-IN-LAW CLAIMS FAMILY SET HIM UP

Kieran Greene ‘persuaded to take blame’ for Patricia’s killing

Living conditions ‘quite cramped’ ‘Sobbing when he confessed’

A MAN accused of murdering a grandmother in the bathroom of her own home has told gardaí he was set up to take the blame by members of the woman’s family.

Kieran Greene is alleged to have killed 61-year-old retired hospital worker Patricia O’Connor, and to have scattered her dismembered body parts across the Wicklow mountains, in 2017.

Mr Greene, 34, formerly of Mountainview Park, Rathfarnham, Dublin, has pleaded not guilty to murdering her on May 29, 2017.

Three other people – including Ms O’Connor’s daughter Louise and granddaughter Stephanie – have pleaded not guilty to obstructing the Garda investigation.

Opening the trial at the Central Criminal Court, DPP senior counsel Róisín Lacey said Mr Greene had initially confessed to the killing, saying Ms O’Connor had first attacked him with a hurley, following a row over a cat.

She said he told gardaí that he had fought back, disarming her and striking her a number of times. He said she had fallen and hit her head, and that he too had blacked out. He said that when he came to, there was blood everywhere and Ms O’Connor was dead.

However, Ms Lacey said that in December 2017, Mr Greene told gardaí a different version of the story. ‘He said that in fact, it was Patricia O’Connor’s husband, Gus, who had killed his wife, and that Kieran Greene had essentially taken the blame,’ counsel said.

‘He went on to say that Patricia O’Connor attacked him with a hurley, that he had fallen to the ground, and at that point in time Gus had entered, carrying some kind of metal bar or crowbar, and that it was Gus O’Connor who had hit Patricia O’Connor two times in the head and that she fell.

‘He said that in the course of that, Gus turned to him and said, “I am defending you, so you can take the rap for it”.’ Ms Lacey added: ‘He said he had been persuaded to take the blame and that he was set up by the others.’

Outlining the background to the case, Ms Lacey said Patricia O’Connor had lived on Mountainview Park, Rathfarnham, in what she described as a modest, fourbedroom house.

She said she lived there with her husband Gus, her daughter Louise, Louise’s partner Kieran Greene and Louise’s five children.

Louise and Kieran had three children together, who were all under the age of ten at the relevant time, the court heard. Louise also had two older children with her former partner, Keith Johnston, including a daughter, Stephanie.

Ms Lacey said: ‘Living conditions were quite cramped, and cramped conditions don’t necessarily lend themselves to a happy environment.’ She said it appeared that tensions in the house were high, that it was a stressful place, and that there were conflicts between individuals living there.

Ms Lacey said that on June 1, 2017, Gus O’Connor and his son Richard went to Rathfarnham Garda Station to report that his wife Patricia had been missing since May 29. A missing persons investigation began. Between June 10 and 14 that year, various human body parts were discovered in the Dublin mountains, counsel said, initially by members of the public. They were found in a total of nine locations within 30km of the Military Road, including the Sally Gap and the Glenmacnass waterfall, the court heard.

Initially, Ms Lacey said, gardaí believed they were dealing with the remains of a young man in his 20s, but this proved to be erroneous. Ms Lacey said: ‘Every single body part was found.

‘The sum of those body parts was Mrs Patricia O’Connor, who had been dismembered.’

She was identified through DNA evidence and dental records, the court heard.

Dr Michael Curtis, who was then the State pathologist, had examined her skull, which was found in a plastic bag along with her two severed hands.

He found that her head had been struck at least three times with a solid implement, and that her skull had fractured, causing her death, counsel said.

Ms Lacey said Mr Greene first went to the gardaí in Rathfarnham on June 12, where he admitted he had killed his ‘mother-in-law’, Patricia O’Connor. He described a fight in the bathroom, and then said he put her body in the boot of her Toyota Corolla and had driven her up to the Dublin mountains, the court heard.

He said he had acted alone, and that nobody else in the family even knew she was dead, the court heard. Gardaí did not make the connection with the body parts being found, as they believed that victim to be a young man, Ms Lacey said.

‘At that point in time, there was some scepticism about what he was saying,’ she said.

She said he left the Garda station in an emotional state, and returned the following day, when he was interviewed again.

This time, he told gardaí he had driven Mrs O’Connor’s intact remains to a cornfield in Wexford, where he had buried her in a shallow grave, the court heard.

He said he returned to that location on June 9, when he dug her up and dismembered her, by himself and without assistance, Ms Lacey said.

‘He said he had put her body parts in plastic bags in the boot of the car and driven up to the Dublin mountains, where the bags were strewn from the car,’ she said.

On June 13, he went with gardaí to the Wexford scene, where they saw evidence of a shallow grave with some hair and a portion of material with a floral pattern, the court heard.

He was immediately arrested, Ms Lacey said. He told gardaí he had come forward after seeing media reports of the body parts being found, the court heard.

Ms Lacey said Louise O’Connor and her daughter Stephanie were interviewed by gardaí, and described Patricia O’Connor coming upstairs at around 9.30pm on May 29, 2017 ‘in a rage’.

She said the pair described how Ms O’Connor ‘had stormed downstairs, furious about something’.

In an apparent reference to her husband, the court heard that the pair claimed Ms O’Connor said: ‘I will be back when he pops his clogs.’ They had also told gardaí that Mr Greene was ‘sobbing and emotional’ when he confessed his involvement in the death of Ms O’Connor.

Ms Lacey said gardaí examined receipts from DIY stores which they found in the house and in the Toyota. They also looked at CCTV, and based on the receipts, bought a number of the items listed, the court was told. These included two hacksaws, axes, black sacks, a large cover sheet, gloves and two pairs of wellington boots from a