Killer jailed for life as Corkman’s family mourn loss

THE killer of a 25-year-old Co Cork man was jailed for life yesterday as the murdered man’s family described the terrible loss and being left with an empty space at their table.

Mr Justice Paul Carney imposed the mandatory life sentence on John Walsh, aged 45, originally from Ballinlough, Cork, and more recently of Cork Street, Mitchelstown.

He was convicted of murdering John McManus in October 2008 at the victim’s flat at Verdon Place, Wellington Road, Cork.

The jury in the seven-week murder trial returned a unanimous verdict of guilty on Wednesday.

The victim’s mother, Geraldine McManus, yesterday expressed her anger and bitterness towards Walsh for taking her son’s life.

Walsh had described Mr McManus as his friend and, at one stage in his evidence, said he loved and would not have harmed him.

After the life term was imposed yesterday, Ms McManus said: “John Paul Walsh preyed on John McManus and he preyed on his innocence. He was never John’s friend. Our lives will never again be the same. We will need counselling. We will never forget John.”

Walsh, at the time, was out on High Court bail on a charge of having cocaine for sale or supply. He was released on that bail in June 2008, and murdered Mr McManus the following October.

Among Walsh’s 12 previous convictions was a three-year sentence for assault causing harm to a woman.

Detective Sergeant Vincent O’Sullivan said: “In that case, he contacted the injured party and invited her to a house party. During the house party he attacked her.

“He pricked her face three times with a knife and stabbed her in the back.”

Walsh got a 10-year sentence for having €210,000 worth of cocaine under a baby’s car seat, a sentence that was reduced to eight years on appeal. That drugs offence and the assault on the woman were committed before Walsh carried out the murder. Sentencing in both cases came after that crime was committed.

In the murder case, Walsh claimed he and Mr McManus had been partying together in the victim’s flat, drinking and taking tablets, and that a fight broke out in a dispute over a phone. He claimed the victim came at him with a knife and he was only defending himself.

However, Mr McManus had over 100 wounds to his body, 56 of them to his head and neck, but Walsh had no injuries when he was medically examined.

Geraldine McManus and her husband Patrick both received phone calls from their son on the day he was murdered. He was very agitated and anxious to get €600 which he said he owed to someone.

Walsh initially told gardaí John McManus owed him money. However, he later denied this, variously stating that the victim did not owe money but that if he did, it was only a small amount.

Tom Creed, prosecuting, had described this debt as the motive for murder.

The breakthrough in the investigation came on November 6, 2008, when a garda in Kerry became suspicious about a car parked on a remote country road. He seized the car because the NCT was out of date. He even jokingly asked the driver — John Walsh — if the shovel found in the car was for the purpose of burying a body.

Garda Daniel O’Connor did not realise until he returned to the same scene hours later that the victim’s body was on marshy ground over the ditch near a few black bags of rubbish. Walsh was later arrested.

Walsh testified — that after what he described as a fight — he woke to find Mr McManus dead. He panicked and put his body under the bed and left the flat. He went on heroin for two days before returning to put the body in the boot of his car, park it in Turner’s Cross for two days and then drive to Kerry on November 6.

Walsh said he put the body in the field but intended to return to retrieve the body and leave it on a beach to be found. While he initially claimed the shovel in his car was for gardening, he admitted for the first time — from the witness box — that he thought about burying the body but could not do so because the victim was his friend.

Walsh’s girlfriend, Gillian Purcell, 34, of Cork Simon and originally from Hollyville, Hollyhill Cork, walked free from court last week when the judge directed the jury to return a verdict of not guilty due to of lack of evidence.