Woman ‘fled’ for her life after murder accused barged into her home and said he needed sex

The occupant of an apartment where a man died in “almost indescribably savage” circumstances has told a murder trial of how she and her son “fled” for their lives after the accused barged into her home and told her he needed sex.

Joanna Forde said she got a feeling of “absolute dread” and knew it “wasn’t going to end well” when the accused man, Liam O’Leary, refused to leave despite repeated demands by her, her son and the deceased, John Casserly.

As she ran from the apartment, she said she looked at Casserly, who was holding a metal stick. She said: “He nodded at me to say, on you go. I was the last one to see him alive, apart from him [O’Leary].”

O’Leary (33) has pleaded not guilty to the murder of 58-year-old Casserly at a Peter McVerry Trust housing unit on Tone St, Ballina, Co Mayo, between October 23rd and 24th, 2024.

Opening the trial this week, prosecution senior counsel Dean Kelly told the jury that when gardaí breached the door of the apartment at about 12:50am, they found Casserly lying naked on the ground, face up, with O’Leary standing over him, clothed.

Casserly had been stabbed 27 times, including on both sides of the chest, in the abdomen, neck, left eye, genitals, and anus. He had suffered multiple blunt force and incised wounds to his trunk, arms and legs, Kelly said.

His left eye had been removed from the skull by a combination of blunt and sharp force and all the bones on the left side of his face were fractured.

State Pathologist Dr Heidi Okkers removed a blade that had been inserted through Casserly’s mouth, into the bony part of the palate and through the base of the skull.

The pathologist also removed a bent and damaged butter knife from Casserly’s anus.

Forde on Wednesday told Kelly that she lived in the apartment opposite Casserly and was aware that he had recently taken on O’Leary as a lodger. That afternoon, she said she could hear the two men arguing from the mid-afternoon into the late evening.

At about 11:30pm, she heard a knock and opened the door, expecting to see Casserly. Instead, she saw O’Leary wearing blue combats but naked from the waist up.

He said he was arguing with Casserly and asked if he could come in. She told him: “No, you can’t. I don’t know you and you’re not dressed. Why would I have you in my house?”

She said O’Leary went to Casserly’s apartment to put on a t-shirt, returned and “barged” into her apartment. “He sat down on the settee and made himself at home, like you do in a stranger’s home,” she said. He asked for a cup of tea. She made him a cup but told him he would have to leave when he was finished.

He told her he “wasn’t going anywhere” and started “ranting and raving on about having sex,” she said. She said he repeatedly said: “I want sex, I need sex, I want sex.”

She added: “I said, if you think you’re doing that, you’ve come to the wrong place, that’s not happening. He said, ‘why not?’. I said, ‘because it’s not’.”

She said she told him to leave but he sat there “bold as brass” and told her he wasn’t going anywhere. She said her son emerged from his room and told O’Leary to leave and she called to Casserly, shouting at him to get O’Leary out and yelling for someone to call the gardaí.

“He still wouldn’t leave,” she said. “And I just knew, the feeling of absolute dread just comes over you, even now I have goosebumps thinking about it. The hair on my neck was standing on end. I just knew this wasn’t going to end well.”

She said she pushed her son, Declan, into the bedroom and followed him in, closing the door behind her.

Forde broke down crying as she described hearing her dog screaming. “He’d got the dog,” she said. “And I heard John saying, put the dog down, put the dog down and he [O’Leary] said, ‘why should I?’ and the dog was still screaming. Declan looked at me and he went, ‘mum, he’s going to kill the dog’, and I said, ‘I know, Declan, I know, What can I do?’.”

She opened the door and saw Casserly holding a metal pole which she believed he had used to strike O’Leary to make him let go of the dog. She told Declan to get out as she grabbed the dog and shoved him into the bathroom before making her own escape.

She said she and her son “fled, literally, for our lives” as they didn’t know if O’Leary was coming behind them.

Under cross-examination by defence counsel Michael Bowman, Forde denied that O’Leary had talked to her about his ex-girlfriend and how he was frustrated having not had sex in a while. She also rejected Bowman’s suggestion that the accused told her that Casserly was acting strangely and he wanted a break.

Natasza Francuiziak told Kelly that in October 2024 she lived at Tone House with her mother in an apartment below Casserly’s. The first time she ever spoke to the deceased was on October 17th, one week before his death.

The fire alarm in the building had been going off regularly and she could smell cannabis in the halls. She said she knocked on Casserly’s door and “very politely” asked him to stop smoking.

She said he told her it was a burnt pizza, but she could tell that wasn’t true. O’Leary was also in the apartment and he asked her how to turn off the alarm. When she told him that it would keep going off if they didn’t stop smoking, she said O’Leary became agitated.

The witness said she became exasperated and told them: “Look lads, just smoke out the f**king window.” She said Casserly told her there was no need for cursing and slammed the door in her face.

On October 23rd, she said she was at home with her mother when they heard Forde and her son shouting, “get out, stop, call the guards.” She said it didn’t sound like a “regular small disturbance” but like “someone was in real danger”.

She described hearing “gruesome yelling… yelling for help” while Forde and her son ran downstairs. After the shouting, she said there was a “dead silence” for about one minute followed by banging, the sound of things being thrown around and a man cursing and pacing back and forth.

The trial continues on Thursday before Justice Melanie Greally and a jury of nine men and three women.