Manslaughter verdict in slurry pit killing case

A JURY found a middle-aged Fermoy woman not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter in the case where the victim was found weeks later submerged in a slurry pit.

Una Geaney, aged 45, of Mullinagleamig, Dingle, Co Kerry, and originally from Fermoy, Co Cork, had denied murdering Gary Bull, aged 37, at Shanlaragh, Dunmanway, Co Cork, on September 23, 2007.

The jury of eight men and four women had been deliberating since Tuesday afternoon, before indicating that they had reached their verdict at 12.30pm yesterday.

Mr Justice Paul Carney thanked the jury for the time taken in arriving at their majority 10-2 verdict and exempted them from jury service for life.

He remanded Geaney in custody for sentencing at the Central Criminal Court on June 7.

The jury had heard some graphic evidence of violence in the lead-up to the killing of Mr Bull and in the killing itself.

One of the most graphic pieces of evidence came indirectly from the accused woman herself.

Peter Donohoe testified to meeting Una Geaney and Amanda McNabb on Monday, September 24, 2007, and he said they told him about killing Mr Bull.

“Una said she hit him with some kind of mallet and there was some lads and they hit him first. They knocked him out. Una and Amanda tried to resuscitate him but when he came around he verbally abused them. They started to fight with him.

“She (Geaney) hit him with a mallet, Amanda stabbed him. She was telling me and Amanda was agreeing with everything.

“It (deceased’s head) had opened up, I think they were in the kitchen. Blood was on the kitchen floor. She went into graphic detail about blood on the floor and the dog licked it or something like that, it was a bit sick but anyway. And he was dead,” Mr Donohoe testified.

This was one of two key pieces of evidence against Geaney.

The second piece came from Clare Freeman who had been in a relationship with Mr Bull for a few years up to one month before his death when she discovered he was having an affair.

Ms Freeman testified that she and three others in the house that Sunday afternoon were pushed into a bedroom and she was unable to open the door but she feared for Mr Bull’s safety and texted a friend to call for an ambulance.

Freeman said that when she got out of the bedroom: “She (Geaney) said it is too late, he’s dead… She had a mallet in her hands that she put into the fire and jeans and some clothes. She said he is in the slurry pit. She said ‘I did it for you, Clare’. She said she had smashed his head in with a mallet.”

The witness said that McNabb claimed to have stabbed Mr Bull. Freeman said McNabb and Geaney both appeared very calm and unremorseful.

Prosecution senior counsel Tom Creed said the deceased may have been an unsavoury character. There was evidence that he powered up a concrete-cutting disc saw on one occasion and cut his partner across the back as she sat in the kitchen. He powered up this con-saw a short time before his death and threatened several people with it. He only dropped it when he was struck in the face with a plank of wood.

However, Mr Creed said Mr Bull wanted to leave then but was not allowed.

“We know he wanted to go. He wanted to leave. He came looking for trouble and he got it. He was looking for his keys. Who had his keys? Ms Geaney had his keys,” Mr Creed said.

Geaney had told the gardaí when questioned that she was afraid that if Bull left the house he would return with others and cause more trouble as a result of being hit with the timber.

In these same interviews, she effectively blamed Jason Thomas, also known as Jay the hat, for killing Mr Bull.

In the interviews Geaney told gardaí that Thomas said that evening that if Mr Bull left Shanlaragh that day he would come back e and kill the man who struck him with the piece of wood.

“Jay had a mallet. Jay and Gary got into a scuffle. Jay gave me the mallet and said hit him with the mallet. Jay said hit him in the head. I could not. His face was all deformed (as a result of being hit with the timber) and I could picture it exploding,” Geaney told the investigators.

She said she only hit Gary once on the leg with the mallet and that she saw Thomas hit him in the head with the mallet.

She said Mr Bull was dead on the Sunday night and on the following Tuesday, she, McNabb and Freeman went to the slurry pit where the deceased’s body was.

Thomas and McNabb were subsequently charged with murder but both of them pleaded guilty to manslaughter and will be sentenced on June 7 at the Central Criminal Court.

Thomas was extradited from England for the purpose of being charged. Freeman was charged with withholding information. She pleaded guilty to that.

Victim impact evidence from the family of the deceased will be presented to the court on June 7.