'I think my partner is dead': Skibbereen murder trial hears woman asked passerby to call gardaí

Tue, 11 Jul, 2023 - 17:22

Liam Heylin

A murder trial jury has been told of a deceased man’s partner calling out an upstairs window of their home in Skibbereen looking for help, saying, “I think my partner is dead downstairs".

Witness Shirley Shorten was walking past the house on High Street, Skibbereen, County Cork, on the morning of September 25, 2017, when she was called by a woman appearing at an upstairs window.

“She said, ‘Sorry, excuse me, can you help me please, I think my partner is dead downstairs’ and could I call the guards,” Ms Shorten testified.

This evidence was given at the trial of Andrew Nash, 43, with an address in Thurles, Co Tipperary, who pleaded not guilty to a charge of murdering Jonathan (John) Ustic, 51, in Skibbereen in September 2017.

Sergeant Padraig Ó Conchuir said he then arrived on the scene and found furniture overturned, shards of glass, and a lot of blood. “There was a blue sofa partially covering the body of a man from the waist down.

“There was a lady there who was distressed. She kept saying over and over, ‘He is dead, isn’t he.’ I approached the body for signs of life. Unfortunately, to my mind, he was deceased," Sgt Ó Conchuir said.

Mr Justice Michael McGrath and the jury of seven men and five women at the Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork also heard from paramedics who arrived in the house that morning.

Evidence

There was evidence from the previous night, shortly before 8pm, of people passing a carpark in the area and seeing a man lying on the ground.

Fachtna O’Donoghue was driving through the town. “I saw a man lying on the centre of the carpark with a mark… on the (left) side of his face. His eyes were kind of rolling in his head. He was motionless. His t-shirt was pulled up,” Mr O’Donoghue said.

Shortly before this, Joanne Kelleher was walking to her car parked outside the premises called Higgledy-Piggledy. “I saw a car driving up. The passenger in the front seat looked beaten, he looked vacant, he didn’t look well. His eyes were open but there was a very vacant look about him. He had a mark on his face … I thought it was a drunken, beaten-up look,” Ms Kelleher said.

Mr Justice McGrath told the jury not to return for the resumption of the trial until Thursday, July 13.

Prosecution senior counsel Seán Gillane said the late Mr Ustic was living at the house on High Street in Skibbereen with his long term partner, Suzanne Fenton, who has since died. She was also the mother of the accused man, Andrew Nash.