'I'd rather die under a rock than go to prison,' Frankie Dunne murder accused told gardaí

The Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork has been hearing extracts of phone calls between the accused and a garda in the days after Mr Dunne’s remains were found

Ionut Cosmin Nichoclescu has told gardaí that he had been living in the abandoned Castlegreine House since November 2019. File picture: Cork Courts Limited

The man accused of murder where a dismembered body was found in Cork told investigators by phone from Bucharest days later: “I don’t want to go to prison because of this. I would rather die under the f***ing rock. I did not kill the guy.” 

Recordings of this and other phone calls were played at the trial before Mr Justice Paul McDermott and a jury of eight women and four men at the Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork.