Jury told body of Meg Walsh dumped close to where it was found

The body of a Waterford woman whose husband is on trial for her murder would have been dumped in a river not far from where her body was found two weeks after her disappearance a Central Criminal Court jury has heard.

35-year-old Meg Walsh’s body was recovered from the River Suir on October 15 2006. She had died from blunt force trauma to the head.

Her husband, bus driver Mr John O’Brien (aged 41) with an address in Ballinakill Downs, Co Waterford denies murdering her on a date between October 1 2006 and October 15 2006, somewhere within the State.

Lieutenant Commander Eddie Mulligan of the Waterford Naval Reserve told Mr Dominic McGinn BL, prosecuting, that Ms Walsh’s body would have been found not long after it came to the surface.

He said that there had been intensive searches of the Suir and surrounding rivers since Ms Walsh’s disappearance and a body would have been spotted quickly.

He said it was his experience that bodies did not travel far once they had been put into the river and, taking the conditions at the time into account, Ms Walsh’s body would have stayed within a radius of 1000 metres from where it was dumped.

He said a dead body would have sunk quickly “like a sack of potatoes” and would have stayed there until it reached “positive buoyancy”. It would then rise quickly and would be easily visible “bobbing” on the surface of the water.

Lieut. Mulligan said that there were several locations within a 1000 metre radius that would have deep enough water to deposit a body. There had been some of the highest tides in 18 years between October 6th and 12th but by the 15th the water level and flow had lessened substantially.

He said Four Quay, a possible location on the same sided of the river as the body was recovered, was “at night, a very dark place.” A second location, Grattan Quay, not far from Rice Bridge would also have been a “very concealed place at night time.”

He said it was unlikely the body could have crossed the river without being seen. On October 15 there were both water searches and people searching the shores of the river on foot. “It certainly would have been sighted that day.”

Ms Caroline O’Connor told Mr Denis Vaughan Buckley SC, prosecuting, that she saw a silver car parked by the gate into the Water Works at Bell Lake on the Dunmore Road, between 8.30 and 9pm on Sunday October 1. The jury have previously heard that Ms Walsh’s car was a silver Mitsubishi Charisma.

Ms O’Connor said it was quite dark and she was surprised to see the car parked on the grassy verge by the side of the road. The light was on inside the car and the front passenger seat was open a jar. She said she did not see anyone in or near the car and, once she had made sure it was no one she knew, she drove on. “When I saw nobody I thought it was quite odd and I kept going.”

Ms O’Connor told Mr Buckley she knew Ms Walsh and Mr O’Brien as customers from the Woodlands Hotel, where she worked. She said the last time she saw the couple was on Thursday October 28 when they came into the hotel’s restaurant for a meal.

She said the couple were “very quiet” and this was particularly unusual for Meg. “She was very chatty. She would embrace you and have a conversation with you and acknowledge you.”

She said that evening she was working in the bar but was back and forth to the kitchen for the bar menu. She noticed Meg on one of her trips across the room and caught her eye. “She was very solemn and serious. I took it there had been something wrong with the meal so I sent a waitress down.” The waitress came back to say there was nothing wrong. She stayed in the restaurant area for sometime but the couple didn’t speak to her. Eventually they went through to the bar and were still there when she left at 9.30pm.

Mr Eddie Gleeson, an engineer with O2, told Mr McGinn that the last activity from Meg’s mobile phone was at 1.59pm on Sunday October 1 when a call was made to her message service.

A call from a friend at 7.12 pm did not get through. Mr Gleeson said this was because the network could not contact the phone. This could be because the battery was run down or taken or because the phone was rendered unusable by being smashed or dropped in water or otherwise incapacitated.

Her phone was pinging off the Blenheim Hill mast closest to the couple’s house in Ballinakill Downs for all the activity on Sunday.

Mr Ivan O’Flynn, also an O2 engineer, told Mr McGinn that Mr O’Brien’s phone was pinging off the Cove Centre mast near the Uluru car park where Meg’s car was abandoned on at 10.03 pm on October 2.

A call was put through to Meg’s phone at 9 pm and several calls were made to his message service between 9.30 and 9.50pm All these calls were bouncing off the Cove Centre.

Mr O’Flynn agreed with defence counsel Mr Paddy McCarthy SC that the Cove mast could pick up over quite a large area but said it would have been dependent on conditions at the time.

The trial continues tomorrow before Mr Justice Barry White and the jury of seven men and five women. It is expected to enter its closing stages by the end of this week.