Fatal stabbing a ‘sustained and violent assault’

STATE pathologist Professor Marie Cassidy told a murder trial that the injuries she found on the body of a stab victim suggested he suffered a “sustained and violent assault”.

Patrick Murphy, aged 27, died because of a 22cm stab wound to his abdomen which cut through his left kidney and renal blood vessels and came as far as the under-surface of the skin on his back, Prof Cassidy said. He also suffered multiple knife injuries to his head, including a cut to his scalp which caused a groove in his skull, and to his back, legs and arms, the pathologist told a trial at the Central Criminal Court in Waterford.

John Flaherty, aged 25, of Ard Daire, Ferrybank, Waterford, denies the murder of Patrick Murphy on June 20 of last year at 42 The Glen, Waterford.

Closing arguments in the case are due to begin this morning.

Cross-examining the witness, Gailaiosa Ó Liadeadh SC, defending, asked if she agreed her findings suggested a “frenzied attack”.

“It’s not a term that pathologists use,” she said, “but certainly there were an excessive number of injuries which suggests this was a sustained and violent assault.”

There were puncture marks on Mr Murphy’s arms, she said, which could be consistent with intravenous drug use.

Detective Sergeant Donal Donohoe said a black plastic bag was found in a sock Mr Murphy was wearing when brought to hospital after being stabbed. He believed that a substance in this sock was heroin.

Memos of interviews given by Flaherty to gardaí after he was arrested later on the day of Mr Murphy’s death were read out to the jury and video excerpts of the interviews were shown in court.

He was asked if he was angry when he found Amy Quigley, his ex-partner and mother of his three children, in bed with Patrick Murphy and his own two-year-old son, and told the gardaí: “Wouldn’t ye be if you saw your partner in bed with some stranger, bollix naked, and your son in the bed as well?”

He agreed with the gardaí interviewing him at the station that he meant to “punish” Mr Murphy but denied he intended to kill him. “That’s still someone’s son and they’ll have to bury him.”