Limerick murder trial jury shown CCTV footage
The jury in a Limerick murder trial was shown CCTV footage of a shooting at a house in the city shortly after the alleged murder took place in a neighbouring house.
The video showed two men approach a house in O'Malley Park, Southill in the early house of December 18, 2006. One of them fired five gun shots at the house before they both ran away.
The occupant of the house had just finished giving evidence on the 11th day of the trial at the Central Criminal Court.
Jonathon Kieley said he couldn’t remember anything about the night Noel Crawford died because he was on drugs at the time.
However, the jury was shown garda interviews conducted a month after the killing in which Mr Kieley gave a detailed account of the night.
Mr Crawford was shot dead outside his parents’ home in O’Malley Park in the early hours of his 40th birthday. Jonathan Fitzgerald (aged 21) of South Claughan Road, Garryowen has pleaded not guilty to murdering him.
Mr Kieley told the gardaí that he was about to go to bed shortly after 2am when his girlfriend’s nephew and two other men jumped over his back gate. He said he went downstairs and was asked to pay the taxi driver, who had taken them there.
“I came back into my house. I saw one of them putting a gun together on the counter,” he told gardaí. “I said: ‘Get that gun out of my house’.”
He said the men also made a petrol bomb in his house, but left it after them when two of them left shortly afterwards. His girlfriend’s nephew stayed in the house.
“Before they left my house one of them said they were going shooting in some windows. I told them: ‘Don’t come back near my house’.” he said.
“Ten or 15 minutes later they came back, beating down the door. When they came back they were breathless,” he said in the garda interview. “I said: ‘What the f**k are ye after doing?’ One of them said: ‘I think I shot Paul’.”
Mr Kieley said he thought he’d meant Paul Crawford, a brother of the deceased.
“I was saying: ‘Come on boys, get out of my house’.” said Mr Kieley. “One of them took off their clothes and f***ed them into my fire.”
Úna Ní Raifeartaigh SC, prosecuting, put it to Mr Kieley that this version of the truth was similar to what his now ex-girlfriend, Laura Kieley, told the court earlier in the trial.
However he said he did not remember making that statement or anything about the night. He said he would definitely remember seeing a gun in his house.
He also said that Ms Kelly had made her final statement in a bid to have criminal charges against her dropped, something she denied in her evidence. He said he had broken up with her for changing her statement to the account she gave in court.
The trial before Mr Justice Barry White and a jury of five women and seven men will continue on Friday.