Man appeals conviction for double murder

A 28-year-old Lithuanian forestry worker has appealed against his conviction last month for the double murder of a mother and daughter in Killorglin, Co Kerry, in June 2013.

Aurimas Andruska, of Ardmoniel Heights, Killorglin, had pleaded not guilty to the murder of Jolanta Lubiene, aged 27, and Enrika, her eight-year-old daughter, at their home at Langford Downs, Killorglin, on a date between June 15 and June 17 last year.

At the end of a five-week trial at the Central Criminal Court, sitting in Tralee, Andruska was found guilty. The unanimous verdict by the jury of seven women and five men was returned in under three hours.

Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy imposed two life sentences, to run concurrently.

The at-times harrowing trial laid bare details of the private life of Ms Lubiene, including her large numbers of male friends and her promotion of herself on dating websites.

However, her family said in victim impact statements that this was not the Jolanta they knew and although she was not perfect, many of the things said about her during the trial were not true.

Andruska, who did not give evidence, consistently denied that a single fingerprint in Jolanta’s blood was his and in garda interviews he repeatedly denied killing the mother and daughter.

A section of the stairwell wall bearing the bloody fingerprint was drilled out and shown to the jury in one of the more dramatic moments in the trial. Two fingerprint experts from the gardaí were called by the prosecution and they both maintained the print, of the small finger of the left hand, was undoubtedly Andruska’s.

Jolanta had been stabbed 61 times and found on the kitchen floor. Enrika was found upstairs in a pool of blood. She had been stabbed eleven times. There was blood all over the house and someone had walked “on the wet blood of Enrika”, the trial heard.

The set of footprints were identified as those belonging to a type of shoe not sold in Ireland but manufactured in Germany and common among Lithuanian people. The print was from a shoe bigger than worn by Andruska.

Andruska, who had got rid of his shoes, said it was because they were worn out. No motive was ever forward for the murders. No murder weapon was produced. Nothing of significance was found in Andruska’s house or car to link him with the murders. DNA found on Enrika’s top was from a visit to the house days before the murder, when the child’s clothes were on the couch, he told gardaí.

The appeal has been lodged by his solicitor, Michael O’Donnell , and it is understood submissions will be on ex jury legal argument during the trial to do with fingerprint evidence and discrepancies between statements on DNA evidence, and there will also be a submission on the initial questioning of Andruska and two other Lithuanians on the side of a road in Kerry.