Cork man gets life for murdering best friend

A young man who stabbed his best friend ten times in the neck was today found guilty of murder and jailed for life.

The jury took a little over three hours to reach their unanimous verdict against Keith Nagle, aged 21, of 15 Churchfield Green, Cork, who denied the charge of murdering 22-year-old Gerard O’Mahony at Flat No 5 at 3 Parkview, Wellington Road, Cork, between April 21 and April 22 2006.

Mr Justice Paul Carney then imposed the mandatory sentence of life imprisonment on Nagle.

The victim’s mother Eleanor O’Mahony welcomed the verdict afterwards but said it would not bring her child back.

“My son was a handsome lad. He wouldn’t hurt anyone, he didn’t hurt anyone. He loved his workmates and they loved him,” Mrs O’Mahony said.

She recalled how he was always there for her and that on Christmas Day he would always set the table. She now visits his grave every day.

When Keith Nagle was arraigned before the trial began on Tuesday at the Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork, Nagle said, “Not guilty to murder, guilty to manslaughter.”

That plea was not acceptable to the Director of Public Prosecutions so the trial commenced before a jury of seven men and five women. Mid-way through the trial one of the men on the jury failed to show up and by agreement of all parties the case went ahead in front of a jury of eleven.

Summing up the case, defence senior counsel, Blaise O’Carroll, stressed the presumption of innocence and he spoke of “the dysfunctional background leading to the distortion of Keith Nagle, a person whose perception is bent out of shape. He had a borderline personality disorder. There was no affirmation in this dark horrible world in which he is growing up.”

He said that in the dark world of Keith Nagle, he had turned his friend, Gerard O’Mahony into almost God-like figure and that when he (the deceased) said anything negative about the accused, Nagle was overtaken by fear in his paranoid thinking.

Mr O’Carroll commented on the moment before Nagle stabbed Mr O’Mahony. “It is quite possible Gerard O’Mahony was only turning around to say, ‘do you want another can?’ but in the distorted world of Keith Nagle that is not what he was thinking. That is the mind you have to get into,” Mr O’Carroll SC said to the jury.

Tom Creed senior counsel also told the jury that they would have to look into the mind of the accused and he said they could look at the surrounding circumstances, as detailed in the memos of interviews with the Gardai, to assist their deliberation.

“If he ‘snapped’, how long before he snapped did he go and get a knife. He had the prescience to go and get that and put it by his side,” Mr Creed said.

The accused man’s psychiatrist, Dr Brian McCaffrey, called Nagle a “walking psychological time-bomb” whose rage was set off by the victim clenching his fists and giving him a dirty look. He said Nagle had a mental illness, being a borderline personality.

Dr Dervla Duffy, psychiatrist, called by the prosecution, said Nagle did not suffer from medical disease and was fully responsible for his actions. She said he had an anti-social personality disorder and had drug and alcohol dependency. She commented that all of Nagle’s symptoms were subjectively expressed were not found objectively.