Clare murder trial hears student 'suffered sustained and violent assault'

A student whose body was found in a barrel on a Clare farm was the victim of a violent and sustained assault and died of severe, extensive trauma to his head, a court has heard.

State Pathologist Professor Marie Cassidy was giving evidence to the Central Criminal Court in the trial of a 33-year-old farmer charged with murdering the student on his farm two years ago.

Joe Heffernan of Cappagh Beg, Barefield, Ennis has pleaded not guilty to murdering 21-year-old Eoin Ryan at that address on June 7, 2011. The body of the Law student from Newhall, Clare was found on Mr Heffernan’s farm that morning.

Prof Cassidy testified today that she carried out a post-mortem exam on Mr Ryan’s body. She said that death was due to severe and extensive trauma to his head and that blunt force trauma to his neck and chest was a contributory factor.

“He was the victim of a violent and sustained assault. He received several blows to his head,” she said.

“The skull had been broken up into small pieces, some of them missing,” she continued, adding that there was non-survivable damage to the deceased man’s brain.

Prof Cassidy said that multiple fractures of Mr Ryan’s facial bones were likely caused by a large, heavy object.

She said that injuries to the left side of his head suggested that they were received while the right side of his head was on the ground.

She said that his breastbone was fractured, something that would have required ‘considerable force’.

The pathologist explained that there was also extensive blunt trauma to his neck and upper chest, with a crush injury to his heart and tares to his oesophagus and windpipe. These were also potentially fatal injuries, she added.

She said there were potentially defensive injuries to both hands but added that, given the extent of his injuries, he was probably rendered unconscious very rapidly and unable to defend himself.

“It’s likely that more than one weapon caused the injuries,” she said.

She was shown a number of objects found and the scene, including a socket wrench, meat clever and crow bar. She said the injuries to the top of the head were probably caused by the meat clever.

She said that the injuries to his face and chest could have been caused by a concrete block being dropped on them. She said she had also examined fragments of concrete blocks found at the scene.

Mr Hefferenan’s mother, Margaret Heffernan, gave evidence that he rang her at about 5.40 that morning.

“He said: ‘Mam, I killed a man. I killed the devil’,” she testified.

She confirmed to Patrick Gageby SC, defending, that he also said he could see the devil’s eyes flashing at him.

She said that he could never accept his father’s leukaemia and subsequent death the previous year, and had broken rosary beads when he learned that his father was going to die.

She agreed that she still set a place for his father at the table after his death ‘for a quiet life’.

“He always used to be up at the grave. He used to be there at night. He had a chair up there,” she said. “He was going to dig it up on a couple of occasions.”

She agreed that he had an interest in communicating across the spiritual divide and in the hereafter.

She said she had taken him to the doctor and to a psychiatrist, who wrote him a prescription, but he didn’t improve.

She said her son was ‘totally’ remorseful for what had happened.

The trial continues before Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy and a jury of seven women and five men.