Cork murder-accused is ‘heartbroken over friend’

A MURDER-accused told a trial yesterday: “I am heartbroken over my friend, I cannot understand how he died — I wasn’t hitting him that hard.”

John Paul Walsh said he and victim John McManus fought over a missing phone after they partied together in a Cork flat on cider and prescription tablets.

“When I look in the mirror I can see John as well — it’s not just myself anymore. I’m going to have to live with this for the rest of my life. I still can’t believe it,” Walsh weeped, as he began his testimony at Cork Circuit Criminal Court.

His two hours in the box was the first of the defence evidence to be heard during the six-week trial.

Walsh admitted putting the dead body under the bed in the flat; returning to put it into his car; putting the remains in a field in Kerry and said he intended to go back to retrieve the body and put it on Banna Strand in the hope that it would be found.

Walsh, aged 45, originally from Ballinlough, Cork, and more recently of Cork Street, Mitchelstown is before the court with Gillian Purcell, 34, of Simon, Anderson’s Quay, Cork, and formerly of Hollyhill, Cork. They both deny a charge of murdering John McManus on a date unknown between October 28 and November 7, 2008 at Flat 1, No 3 Verdon Place, Wellington Road, Cork.

Walsh yesterday described the events of October 30/31, 2008: “Me and John got drunk, had a few tablets and got out of our heads. We had four litres of cider between us. We were playing music, dancing, having a laugh. Nice buzz.

“A punching match started. He banged his head off the armchair. A few slaps were thrown. The fight started over a stupid mobile phone. The two of us were out of it over tablets and drink. He was angry, kept coming after me. He said I am going to cut you up. I seen him looking at the knife.

“I picked up a piece of the chair that he had fallen down on earlier, a stick or arm or leg or something like that. I gave him a few whacks. They were just warning whacks.

“We fell on the ground, I was whacking him on the legs with the stick. They weren’t hard whacks, they were ordinary whacks. I didn’t mean to hurt him. It was just a stupid fight. I said, ‘John, you’re not cutting me up’.

The accused said they both cleaned the place up after the fight.

“I went in to call him (in the morning). He didn’t wake up. I checked his pulse and I checked his breathing. I just got a fright of my life. He was grand when I was going to sleep.”

Asked by his senior counsel Blaise O’Carroll why he didn’t call the gardaí, he said: “I couldn’t believe it myself, no one else is going to believe what happened.”

Walsh will continue in the witness box today.