Mother bled to death while kids waited for party, court hears

A 30-year-old Clonakilty woman lay bleeding to death in her estranged partner’s flat whilst her two young daughters were locked inside their home waiting for her to return so they could celebrate her oldest daughter’s ninth birthday, a court has heard.

Hadim Kedik (aged 33) with an address at Connolly Street, Clonakilty, Co Cork, has pleaded not guilty to murdering Rose Patterson (aged 30) between April 11 and 12, last year.

Kedik, who came to Ireland from Turkey to work in a barbershop in Clonakilty in 2002, has admitted inflicting Ms Patterson’s injuries, but says he never planned to kill her.

The court has heard Ms Patterson’s had taken the couple’s 21-month-old son to Kedik’s flat, situated above the barbershop where he worked, for a court ordered access visit on April 11.

She was found in the flat the following morning having suffered eight stab wounds. Kedik was laying face down on the floor after slashing his own throat and wrists and their son was found uninjured but bloodstained and sleeping near their bodies.

Following the discovery, gardaí went to Ms Patterson’s house at Parkview in Clonakilty and found her two daughters aged nine and five locked inside the home waiting for their mother to return.

Detective Sergeant Gerard Crowley said it took some time for the girls to come to the door but when they did it was locked and there was no key to open it.

He eventually got in through a window.

“She told us that they were locked in since yesterday morning when their mother left. They were expecting her home because it was (the eldest) birthday,” Mr Crowley said.

Garda Deirdre Lyons who was with him told the court the girls were calm and not distressed. She said they seemed clean and well cared for.

Before arriving at Parkview Ms Lyons had been at Kedik’s flat where she had seen the girl’s baby brother crying and upset while he was photographed and had his blood stained clothing removed.

Yesterday afternoon the court heard from witnesses who had been in Clonakilty’s Mcilhattons pub on April 10 and been teasing the barman Gerard Connaughton about having walked Ms Patterson home from the pub the previous Saturday night.

Silvia Harrington and Deirdre Footman were friends of Ms Patterson and said they were teasing Mr Connaughton about “having a new girlfriend” asking him if he was going to call her or take her out for dinner.

Both of them failed to see Kedik sitting at the bar drinking a pint as the banter went on, the court heard.

“When I started the banter I didn’t realise I was putting my two feet into it,” Tom O’Sullivan an auctioneer from Clonakilty, who was also in the pub, told the court.

“I would like to apologise for what I did because I didn’t know her boyfriend was in the bar,” Mr O’Sullivan said adding Ms Patterson had told him the father of her son was Turkish but he did not know it was the man who cut his hair occasionally.

The jury of eight men and four women were also shown photos yesterday of the bloodstained floor in the kitchen of Kedik’s apartment.

Detective Garda Shane Curran said, most of the blood staining was in the kitchen, Ms Patterson’s sneaker prints through it.

A child’s milk beaker was sitting on the kitchen counter also bloodstained.

At her post-mortem it was discovered Ms Patterson had blood on the soles of her feet, Mr Curran told the court it suggested at some point she had walked around without her shoes on although, he said, her body was found wearing shoes and a sweatshirt belonging to Kedik which had no evidence of stab cuts.

CCTV footage shown to the jury from the back of the barbershop shows Ms Patterson going out the back carrying her son over her shoulder just after 1.30pm followed soon after by Kedik.

The couple are not seen again.

Just after 11.40am the following morning Romazan Cansu, Kedik’s friend and co-worker, is seen carrying the little boy in the back door of the barbershop before putting him on the floor.

The child stands on his own looking up at gardaí and ambulance officers filing through the backroom of the barbershop that leads to the apartment upstairs.

Mr Blaise O’Carroll, SC is appearing for Kedik.

Mr John O’Kelly SC appears for the DPP.

The trial before Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy in the Central Criminal Court at Dublin resumes on Friday.