SPLIT SECOND
When Wayne O’donoghue strangled neighbour Robert Holohan, 11, to death, the impact would still be felt nearly two decades on by their shocked community. In January 2005, Robert had gone to see O’donoghue, then 20, at his home in Ballyedmond, County Cork, to ask him to accompany him to a fast-food restaurant.
The university student said no, but then things took a tragic turn. “Robert threw a handful of pebbles at my car and one of them hit me on the back of the neck. That’s when it happened,” O’donoghue later said. “It all happened so quickly. It was over in seconds.” The student had gotten Robert into a headlock, putting his hand on the boy’s throat, which led to his death from asphyxia. “When I removed my hand, he just fell to the ground,” he told police. But rather than calling for help, O’donoghue tried to conceal his crime, wrapping the body in refuse sacks and dumping it in an isolated glen, where it remained for eight days before it was discovered. O’donoghue was arrested after he confessed to his crime the day after Robert’s funeral. During the trial, the schoolboy’s mum, Majella Holohan, called her son’s killer a “paedophile”, claiming in her victim impact statement that semen was found on Robert’s body. There was no evidence this belonged to O’donoghue.
O’donoghue, who was given a four-year sentence for manslaughter after the judge Mr Justice Paul Carney believed that Robert’s injuries were
“at the horseplay end of the scale”, has strongly denied these allegations. “I am not a paedophile. I couldn’t believe when people started to say there was anything going on between us. There is no way there was anything going on between Robert and myself,” he said. While he’s no longer behind bars, O’donoghue – who was released in 2008 after serving three years, and has since moved to England – said his crime will haunt him forever. “I will feel sorry for what I did until the day I die.
It will always be on my mind.”