Dublin murder trial hears further evidence

A Dublin murder victim made a phone call requesting ‘a drop of that stuff’ shortly before he was shot dead, a murder trial has heard.

Paul Kelly (aged 26) of O’Brien Hall in the inner city died almost instantly when he was shot several times on the night of April 6 2007.

Michael Taylor (aged 31) of Summerhill in Dublin City is on trial at the Central Criminal Court, charged with his murder. He has pleaded not guilty to committing the crime at Winston Ville apartments on Charlemont Road, Clontarf, where Mr Kelly had been staying.

Michael O’Higgins SC, defending, yesterday read the statement of Jodie Felloni, one of the last people to see the victim alive.

The 23-year-old said that she and Mr Kelly had watched Starsky and Hutch on television that night in the apartment in Winston Ville.

“Paulie rang someone and said he wanted a drop of that stuff,” she told Gardaí during the investigation. She said she did not know what Mr Kelly was talking about and that he was texting when she went to bed after the film.

She was woken by Mr Kelly’s runners banging in the washing machine at one stage and thought nothing of it when she was woken by ‘a load of bangs’ later on.

However she then heard a woman screaming for help and went downstairs, where she saw a hole in the window of the main entrance. She knew that this was from a gunshot and made a number of phone calls.

She said a garda brought her out onto the road and she saw a woman with blood on her housecoat.

She finished her statement by saying that she did not know to whom Mr Kelly was speaking when he was ‘looking for that stuff’.

The prosecution had earlier closed its case and closing speeches will take place on Wednesday before Mr Justice Barry White and a jury of nine men and three women.