Prosecution tells Cork murder trial accused had said he had killed his wife in 999 call

The jury was told that it would be alleged by the prosecution that the accused purchased the knife used on July 14, 2023, two days earlier

43-year-old Regin Parithapara Rajan (pictured), was arraigned on the single charge of murdering 38-year-old Deepa Paruthiyezhuth Dinamani at their home at Cardinal Court, Wilton, Cork, on July 14, 2023. File picture: Dan Linehan

The man who was put on trial on Monday for the murder of his wife was described by the prosecution as making a 999 call on the night in question in which he said he had killed his wife.

That was one of the allegations made by prosecution senior counsel Seán Gillane in his opening of the case before a judge and jury at the Central Criminal Court in Cork. Mr Gillane stressed that his opening address was a thumbnail sketch of the evidence anticipated by the prosecution but was not itself evidence. 

43-year-old Regin Parithapara Rajan, was arraigned on the single charge of murdering 38-year-old Deepa Paruthiyezhuth Dinamani at their home at Cardinal Court, Wilton, Cork, on July 14, 2023, contrary to common law. He replied, “Not guilty.” 

Mr Gillane said it would also be alleged by the prosecution that the accused purchased the knife used on July 14, 2023, two days earlier.

The prosecution senior counsel said that on that day he phoned a friend to ask him to collect his child from a summer camp and to bring him to the friend’s house, and not back to Cardinal Court, because he (the accused) said he had a job interview that afternoon. Mr Gillane said that in fact the accused did not have a job interview.

He said that the first person who arrived in the house that evening was a nurse who shared the house with the family. She encountered the accused at the doorway to the bedroom and reference was made to the deceased working.

The friend minding the five-year-old son of the couple arrived at the house with his own wife soon afterwards to bring the child home. This couple and the nurse then went for a walk together in the Wilton area before returning to the house.

“He (the accused) said to him (his friend who minded the child) he had killed his wife and she was inside. He also said he stabbed her with a knife. His reaction was one of shock. Unfamiliar with what to do in such circumstances in Ireland he rang a friend before ringing 999.

“A 999 call was also made by the accused and in it he indicated had killed his wife. The call was made coming up to 10pm.

“(Gardaí found) the bedroom heavily bloodstained. It was immediately obvious she had passed. There was nothing that could be done for her. Recovered from the scene was a bloodstained knife.

“She had suffered a large incised wound to her neck that severed the main strap muscle in her neck. Effectively, blood loss from that injury was the cause of death, complicated by inhalation of blood.

“A palm print of the accused was recovered from the bloodstained knife. It was a knife purchased by him two days prior to the incident,” Mr Gillane said.

The deceased, who was a native of Kerala in south-west India, highly educated and qualified as a chartered accountant who had fluent English and worked in London before coming to Cork with her husband and child in March 2023, four months before her death.

She had married the accused in October 2015. Mr Gillane said the marriage was in difficulty in 2023, it had cooled and she was contemplating divorce.

Their home in Cork had been sourced by an agency that specialised in securing accommodation for executives coming to work in Cork. Mr Gillane said she was well-regarded and a good worker and a good colleague in the accounts section of Alter Domus fund services at Cork Airport Business Park.

Ms Justice Siobhán Lankford told members of the jury panel at the courthouse in Anglesea Street that they should be available until April 11 as the trial could last “in excess of two weeks” and a jury of seven women and five men was sworn in for the trial.