'Vulnerable' schoolgirl Anastasia Kriegel ‘lured from home to violent death’

One of the boys accused of murdering 14-year-old Anastasia Kriegel lured her from her home to a derelict farmhouse where he voyeuristically watched another boy sexually assault and murder the “vulnerable” schoolgirl.

The prosecution said there is a “compelling and coercive forensic case” against the boy waiting at the farmhouse including a “chilling” zombie mask found in his backpack.

The Central Criminal Court heard from Ana’s mother yesterday, who described the bullying her “vulnerable” daughter had endured in the months before her death.

It was the opening day of the trial of the two teenagers accused of murdering the Kildare girl at Glenwood House, Laraghcon, Clonee Rd, Lucan, Co Dublin, on May 14 last year.

The two accused, both aged 14, cannot be named because they are minors. They have each pleaded not guilty.

One of the boys is further charged with aggravated sexual assault in a manner that involved serious violence. He also pleaded not guilty to that count.

Brendan Grehan, opening the case for the prosecution, explained that gardaí discovered Ana’s body on May 17 at the derelict Glenwood House, 3km from her home through St Catherine’s Park.

She was naked apart from her socks and a ligature around her neck. She had obvious head injuries.

The scene, which was bloody, comprised a small, downstairs room, not much bigger than the jury box, he said.

Her broken phone and clothes were scattered around the room. Some were damaged, “suggesting that they had been forcibly removed”, he added.

A postmortem revealed severe and extensive injuries to Ana’s head and neck, which had caused her death. The pathologist also found injuries suggesting attempted sexual penetration.

The examination concluded that she had been violently assaulted within that room and that there had been a struggle.

The jury heard that Ana’s mother had reported her missing at 9pm on Monday, May 14.

She was last seen by her family at 5pm that day, when she left her home at Newtown Park in Leixlip, Co Kildare, in the company of the second accused.

She had told her father she would not be long. She was last seen alive with this boy in nearby St Catherine’s Park.

Her mother was trying to contact her by phone as she made her way home from work around that time. She was getting no reply, which was unusual.

Of concern too was that she had left her home with a boy, who had never visited before, and Mrs Kriegel was searching the park by 5.40pm.

“It’s the prosecution’s case that Ana was already dead at this stage,” said Mr Grehan.

The gardaí responded to her mother’s report that night by going to the boy’s house and speaking to him and his mother.

“In the first of many different accounts (he) was to give the gardaí, he told them he’d called for Ana and they went to St Catherine’s park, where he’d last seen her,” said Mr Grehan.

“Significantly, he did not mention his friend (the first accused) at this stage.”

They visited him again the following day and he told them that he had called for Ana on behalf of the first boy, who had then met Ana in the park.

He said he knew that Ana was interested in this boy and the suggested purpose of the meeting was for this boy to tell her that he wasn’t interested.

He claimed that after a short conversation between the two, she had gone one way while he and his friend had gone the other.

A number of people gave accounts of seeing the first accused limping and with blood on his clothing not long after 5.40pm. He had said he had been attacked by two men, whom he had fought off.

“Gardaí investigated this allegation and it’s the prosecution’s case that (he) came by his injuries in a struggle with Ana, in which he sexually assaulted and killed her, and this was a made-up story,” said Mr Grehan.

He told the jury he would be “connected to the scene by male DNA found on her neck and the tape around her neck, and semen on her top found in the same room”.

He alleged that various items from his home would also “connect him to Ana’s murder”.

“These include the contents of a distinctive backpack he was seen carrying in the park, including gloves, kneepads, shinguards, and, perhaps most chillingly, a homemade zombie-type mask,” he said.

“The prosecution case will be that there’s no explanation consistent with innocence.”

Mr Grehan said the legal basis for the case against his co-accused was somewhat different.

“It is that he aided and abetted the murder of her, that he assisted or helped it to happen knowing what was going to happen, that he provided this help by, in the first place, luring Ana from her house to meet (the first accused), knowing she’d want to meet him,” he explained.

However, Mr Grehan said he knew that Ana would not be meeting his friend in some romantic way in the park, but “at a dirty, dark derelict house that he or (the first boy) made sure was empty before entering, handing Ana over to (him), knowing preparations must have been made… by providing the builder’s tape for the ligature found on her neck… by remaining and voyeuristically watching her murder and sexual assault, by participating in the cover-up afterwards, and lying repeatedly to the gardaí about what he saw, knew, and did.”

Mr Grehan said the jury would also hear other evidence and learn about the background of the two boys, including ‘some peculiar interests they had’.