Mandatory life term for ‘savage’ killings

BRUTAL, savage and sadistic is how the murders of two Polish men were described by the judge who jailed their killer yesterday.

Mr Justice Liam McKechnie imposed the mandatory life sentence on David Curran, aged 19, of Lissadel Green, Drimnagh, for murdering the mechanics in their front garden.

Curran used a screwdriver to stab Pawel Kalite, aged 28, and Marius Szwajkos, aged 27, through their heads on February 23, 2008, outside their home on Benbulben Road, Drimnagh.

A jury of eight women and four men found him guilty of their murders on Thursday, after a three-week trial at the Central Criminal Court, where he pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to manslaughter.

“From an incident of almost meaningless consequence in which David Curran had no part, he ended up killing, murdering these two people,” said the judge, referring to an earlier row involving Mr Kalite and three of Curran’s friends. Minutes later Curran went to the victims’ home and stabbed both men within seconds.

“There was no fight. Neither of these people threw a punch. There wasn’t even a scuffle,” remarked the judge. “There’s something profoundly sinister in what he did and how he did it. There were no blows to the arms, legs or torso and there wasn’t even an attempt to do so. With lethal accuracy, David Curran aimed at probably the most vulnerable part of the human body, the temple. Then by a single blow, which penetrated the skull, he caused his (Mr Kalite’s) death.

“That blow wasn’t enough. He removed the screwdriver and with the same lethal accuracy, aiming it at the same point and in the same way, he murdered Mariusz.”

Mr Justice McKechnie noted the pathologist’s evidence that it required great force to penetrate a person’s skull to such a depth and to remove the screw driver and repeat the process.

“It leaves a chilling and truly disturbing feeling as to what kind of person could do such a thing, brutal and savage, and one could well describe it as sadistic.

“Within a few hours he set about scheming his way out of it. Phones had to be got rid of, alibis, concoctions abound. Then he tries to lay it off on Keogh,” he noted, referring to his blaming of his co-accused, Seán Keogh. He said that from that time on, Curran had done nothing but try to strategise his way out of it.