'I’m an innocent man,' says fifth defendant as he is convicted of murder in Kerry graveyard
Thomas Dooley was murdered at Rath Cemetery in Tralee during a funeral service there. Picture via Facebook
A fifth man was found guilty on Tuesday of murdering 43-year-old Tom Dooley at the cemetery in Tralee but the accused spoke up from the dock, insisting: “I’m an innocent man.”
29-year-old Michael Dooley, of the halting site, Carrigrohane, Cork, was found guilty by the unanimous decision of the jury at 4.08pm this afternoon.
There were emotional scenes in Courtroom 3 at the courthouse in Anglesea Street, Cork, as soon as the jury’s verdict was delivered in this Central Criminal Court case.
Michael Dooley — with outstretched hands — declared, “I’m an innocent man, judge. It’s not fair. I’m an innocent man going to jail for murder. It’s not fair. What justice? An innocent man going to prison. It’s not fair.” The jury then left for the day.
The court will not be sitting on Wednesday so Ms Justice Mary Ellen Ring told the 10 men and two women of the jury to resume their deliberations on the last remaining defendant on Thursday.
The jury spent a total of 16 hours and 53 minutes in deliberations, in the course of a total of four days so far. Thursday will be their fifth day of deliberating and it will the 34th day of the trial which commenced back on June 4.
Ms Justice Mary Ellen Ring told the jurors on Tuesday as they embarked on their work: “You know the drill”. She reminded them that they could take their breaks and return whenever they were ready. Previously, she told them they were under no pressure and there was a lot of evidence and matters to consider.
Before Michael Dooley was found guilty of murder on Tuesday, Patrick Dooley, 36, from Arbutus Grove, Killarney — brother of the deceased — was found guilty of murder by the jury on Friday, July 19.
The previous day, Thomas Dooley Sr, 43, and his son Thomas Dooley Jr, 21, both from the halting site, Carrigrohane, Cork, and the teenager in the trial were found guilty of murdering father-of-seven, 43-year-old Tom Dooley from Hazelwood Drive, Killarney, at New Rath Cemetery, Rathass, Tralee, on October 5, 2022. Thomas Jr. was additionally found guilty of assault causing harm to the deceased man’s widow, Siobhán.
42-year-old Daniel Dooley of An Carraigin, Connolly Park, Tralee, County Kerry, is the last defendant on whom the jury will have to deliberate now. From the outset he pleaded not guilty to murdering Thomas Dooley.
Ray Boland senior counsel for Michael, said: “At the centre of the prosecution case against Michael Dooley there is only one bit of evidence — that is testimony — the testimony of Siobhán Dooley and there has to be a doubt about Siobhán Dooley’s testimony.”
Mr Boland said that not alone had she said that she had seen a man — mistakenly identified — as being involved in the killing, she had, Mr Boland said, “given him a speaking part, saying words along the lines of, ‘Push up there boy, leave me at him’.” He added that we should thank God for CCTV proving that the mistakenly identified man was in Cork at the time.
“Looking at evidence of Siobhán Dooley she does not have Michael attack her husband. She says she saw Michael behind him with a weapon. I suggest to you he never had a weapon. The prosecution are asking you to rely on that fleeting glance, there is no other evidence.
“He went to the funeral to pay his respects. It is a pity Michael went to the funeral but it is not a crime,” Mr Boland said.
Prosecution senior counsel Dean Kelly said the six men, travelling in three vans, left the cemetery and drove in convoy, adding, “These are men working together in the business of murdering Thomas Dooley and in the business of escaping.”
“The one thing you can say about Patrick and Danny Dooley is that they are joined at the hip at all times, hand in glove, close together — they are in sync. If you are satisfied that Patrick has carried out the murder of his brother the only thing you can say about Danny running directly after him out of the cemetery and into the van is that Danny carried out the murder too. But that is a matter for you.”
Mr Kelly added that Michael and Daniel were questioned by gardaí and “when asked to account for their presence in Rath cemetery they had no response.” He said they did not “deserve a free pass from what happened in Rath cemetery.”
Brian McInerney senior counsel for Daniel Dooley — the last remaining defendant on whom the jury is still deliberating — said that the prosecution case was like a jigsaw, the full picture presented in the opening speech to the jury, followed by the laying out of evidence like pieces of a jigsaw.
He said that in the opening there was no mention of Siobhán Dooley identifying Daniel because she had never done so, before naming him when she was in the witness box.
“Only in the middle of the trial that Siobhán Dooley announces, ‘Oh, Danny Dooley was there’. Mr Kelly did not mention Siobhán’s evidence (about Daniel) because they were not in the jigsaw box. She never mentioned Danny Dooley in any statement,” Mr McInerney said.
He said Siobhán had named in her statement someone who could not possibly have been in the graveyard that day and then testified that she meant Daniel, as the two men are “an awful lot alike” and that she just got confused about the names.
Mr McInerney said she never went to the garda station to say she had made an awful mistake. Mr McInerney said: “He is not forensically linked to anything, anywhere, so there is another great big hole in the jigsaw picture.”
He said the jigsaw box had a picture on the front but that inside the box were blurred pieces, missing pieces and pieces from another box.
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