CHAINSAW BLOODBATH
Accused told gardai he shot pal, cut up his body & threw it in the canal
A MAN shot his friend and cut his body into pieces with a chainsaw before disposing of them in the Grand Canal, a trial heard yesterday.
The court was played tapes of Garda interviews in which Dubliner Paul Wells Snr described the scene as “carnage”.
However, the 50-year-old claimed he had saved the life of the victim’s partner by committing the grisly act.
Wells has pleaded not guilty to murdering Kenneth O’brien, 33, at his home in Barnamore Park in Finglas, North Dublin, in January 2016.
He told gardai: “I couldn’t believe what I’d done. He was my friend. All I could do is ask him to forgive me.”
A MAN who shot his friend in the head then used the victim’s chainsaw to chop him up described the scene as “pure carnage”.
Paul Wells Snr told gardai the act was one of “f ***** g savagery” which left the smell of death.
However, he insisted he had saved the life of Kenneth O’brien’s partner, who he claimed the deceased wanted dead.
The Central Criminal Court heard evidence yesterday in the trial of father-of-five Wells.
The 50-year-old, of Barnamore Park in Finglas, Dublin, is accused of shooting and dismembering his neighbour.
However, Wells pleaded not guilty to murdering the 33-year-old at his home on January 15 or 16, 2016.
He claimed Mr O’brien had wanted him to kill his partner so he could take their child back to Australia, where he had previously lived.
Earlier this week the jury began watching DVDS of Wells’ interviews with gardai.
He told them he shot the deceased in the back of the head during a scuffle over Mr O’brien’s alleged request he murder Eimear Dunne and make it look like “sexual abuse”.
In recordings seen by the jury yesterday, Wells told of realising he could not lift Mr O’brien’s body from where it lay in his garden shed.
He said: “I was frightened of being discovered. There was an orange- handled chainsaw. I don’t know what I was thinking, my head was spinning.”
Explaining he had borrowed the tool from his victim a year or two earlier, he continued: “The hard part for me was it belonged to Ken.
“I knew I couldn’t do it in the shed. I pulled him outside, having taken all his clothes off.
“I must have made about six attempts to f ***** g try and do it. I kept bottling. I was half expecting him to wake up.
“Eventually I got it started. I never thought I’d do that to a human being, my friend. I just had an overwhelming sense of trying to survive.”
He said he wrung a tea towel until it was like a rope, put it in his mouth and bit down as hard as he could. Wells added: “I couldn’t believe what I’d done. What sort of f ***** g person was I?
“That smell was all over, of death. God, he was my friend. Why did he f ***** g choose me? All I could do is ask him to forgive me.”
He said he picked up Mr O’brien’s head, arms and legs and put them in plastic bags then rolled the torso on to a sheet of plastic. He considered burying him but didn’t have a pick or shovel.
Wells told gardai that by 5.15am he had put the torso into a suitcase in his car. He then drove to the M50, ending up in Ardclough, Co Kildare, where he had first gotten to know Mr O’brien.
Referring to the Grand Canal, he added: “I’m ashamed to say I put that suitcase
I kept bottling.. I was half expecting him to wake up PAUL WELLS SR
in the water.” The court had previously heard he went to Mr O’brien’s house later that morning after Ms Dunne called him looking for her partner.
Wells said: “I almost found myself transfixed, looking at Eimear. I was happy in myself, even with guilt, that she was alive.”
He said he left the house, knowing he had “a lot of work ahead”.
This involved disposing of the rest of Mr O’brien’s body, which was wrapped in plastic bin bags in his shed.
He put them in his car boot, then drove to Celbridge to meet his son and discuss his upcoming stag party.
Wells said: “We went on a drive. This stuff was in my car, Paul had no knowledge. Eventually we found ourselves beside a couple of barges. I felt this might be the spot.”
He pretended to have to go to the toilet and threw the bags in the water. He later flung the dismantled gun into the Liffey near the Strawberry Beds.
The trial had already heard Mr O’brien’s hands were never found. Wells said he had left them on his shed shelf then forgotten about them.
He finally put them into the water at Islandbridge on the evening of January 18.
He denied this was to avoid identification.
The trial continues.
GARDA INTERVIEW