Man found guilty of murdering mother-of-two Daena Walsh – The Irish Times

A 31-year-old man has been jailed for life after he was found guilty of the murder of his partner and mother of his two children, Daena Walsh.

Adam Corcoran had denied both the murder of the 27-year-old at the apartment they shared at John Barry House, Connolly Street, Midleton, Co Cork, on August 2nd, 2024 and causing criminal damage by arson to the apartment on the same occasion.

But a jury of eight men and four women unanimously found Corcoran, a native of Ballincollig, Co Cork, guilty following two hours and 30 minutes of deliberations.

Imposing a mandatory life sentence, Judge Siobhán Lankford noted the evidence from State Pathologist, Dr Yvonne McCartney that Corcoran had inflicted 25 separate knife wounds to Walsh in the course of the attack.

“It is clear his actions were truly horrific and a young mother, Daena Walsh died as a result of a frenzied attack – the pathology showed she had been stabbed in the face, neck, abdomen and chest causing her death, it was clear from her defensive wounds that she fought for her life,” Judge Lankford said.

She noted that Corcoran had also attempted to amputate Walsh’s left arm post-mortem in what appeared to be an attempt to dismember her body and when that did not appear to work, he attempted to burn the apartment and destroy the evidence.

In a victim impact statement, her brother Callum Walsh said Daena Walsh was a devoted mother who loved her two sons “beyond words”.

“What was done to Daena was not just cruel, it was savage. It was a conscious, violent act, carried out with no mercy, no regard for the life of a woman who meant everything to her children and to us. Our lives have been completely destroyed,” he said.

He said that their family have been torn apart by her murder and they were “furious” that they had to sit through a trial and hear “the lies Adam Corcoran had told”.

“Let me be absolutely clear, what was done to Daena was evil,” he added.

During the eight-day trial at the Central Criminal Court in Cork, the jury heard from Corcoran that he and Daena Walsh, a native of Co Wicklow, had been together for 10 years.

The fortnight before her death, they had been drinking and taking cocaine and prescription drugs such as Xanax, Valium and benzodiazepines. They had been awake all night after taking cocaine and benzodiazepines and were planning to go into Cork city on the afternoon of August 2nd to buy more drugs and to look for an engagement ring, but they had no change for the bus and returned to their apartment.

He said that Walsh had accused him of eyeing a girl on the bus, but he had assured her he wasn’t cheating on her and when they returned to the flat, he went into the bedroom and rolled up a joint and called to Walsh who was in the kitchen, but she didn’t answer.

He said he went into the kitchen and Walsh was self-harming with a knife and when he tried to take it from her, she began lashing out as she screamed that she was going to end it all and he grappled with her and fell on top of her and the knife cut her as it fell from her grip.

Corcoran had rung the emergency services and told them Daena Walsh had stabbed herself while he also told gardaí at the scene and later at interview after his arrest that she had taken her own life. He later admitted in court he had killed her.

Cross-examined by prosecution counsel Donal O’Sullivan, Corcoran he admitted “Yes, I killed her” and accepted it was not in self-defence. When O’Sullivan pressed him why he had told everyone she took her own life, he said: “That’s what I believed happened at the time.”

The jury had heard evidence from State Pathologist Dr Yvonne McCartney that Daena Walsh had suffered 51 separate injuries and in addition to bruises and lacerations, these included 25 knife wounds to her face, neck, chest, abdomen and limbs as well as some burn injuries.

McCartney said a number of the stab wounds were fatal, particularly a cluster over her heart and four of these pierced the right atrium of her heart.

The judge thanked the jury for their diligence in trying the case, telling them: “As you can see these are solemn matters and it is important that they are done in public”.

Thanking Callum Walsh for his eloquent and powerful victim impact statement, the judge extended her condolences to the Walsh family, observing that “Daena was a loving mother, daughter and sister – she had many people in her life who clearly loved her deeply.”

Defence counsel Brendan Grehan said Corcoran accepted both the murder and arson verdicts and he wished express to the Walsh family “his regret and remorse and sorrow for his actions in causing the death of Daena whom he loved very much.”

The judge said that Corcoran’s assertion that Walsh had tried to take her own life had added to the distress of the Walsh family, but she hoped that Corcoran’s acceptance of the verdicts and his expression of remorse and regret was of some small consolation to them.

She sentenced Corcoran to the mandatory life sentence, and she imposed a concurrent 15 year sentence for the arson offence which she believed was at the higher end of the scale and put the lives of others in the building at risk.