Double murder accused Ruth Lawrence and her boyfriend acted as \u201ca unit and a tag team\u201d to \u201clure\u201d a drug dealer to their home to murder him in a \u201chighly calculated\u201d crime, a prosecution barrister has told a jury.<\/p>\n
The trial has heard that Ms Lawrence was extradited from South Africa to face trial in 2023, nearly a decade after the bodies of Anthony Keegan (33) and Eoin O\u2019Connor (32) were found on a lake island in the midlands.<\/p>\n
Michael O\u2019Higgins SC, for the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), told the trial the two men\u2019s bodies were found \u201cbound in rope, tape and covered in tarpaulin\u201d on Inchicup Island on Lough Sheelin.<\/p>\n
Ms Lawrence (46), who is originally from Clontarf, in Dublin, but with an address at Patricks Cottage, Ross, Mountnugent, in Co Meath, has pleaded not guilty to murdering Mr Keegan and Mr O\u2019Connor at an unknown location in the State on a date between April 22nd, 2014, and May 26th, 2014, both dates inclusive.<\/p>\n
Mr O\u2019Higgins, on Monday gave his closing speech in the Central Criminal Court trial, submitting that the \u201ctrail very quickly\u201d led back to Ms Lawrence and her South African boyfriend Neville van der Westhuizen, who enjoyed a \u201csymbiotic relationship\u201d. <\/p>\n
Counsel said Ms Lawrence had shot Mr O\u2019Connor in the stomach intending to kill him but she had not acted alone and her boyfriend had \u201cfinished him off\u201d. He described the accused\u2019s familiarity and comfort of \u201cposturing with a gun\u201d as \u201csinister\u201d.<\/p>\n
Addressing the jury, Mr O\u2019Higgins with Jane Horgan-Jones BL, prosecuting, described the case as \u201chighly-detailed\u201d, where it was argued that drug dealer Mr O\u2019Connor was \u201clured\u201d to Patricks Cottage for the purpose of murdering him. <\/p>\n
Mr O\u2019Higgins said it was unclear on the evidence whether Ms Lawrence and Mr van der Westhuizen were aware Mr Keegan was going to be with Mr O\u2019Connor on April 22nd, however \u201ca plan was fine-tuned and he was murdered too\u201d. <\/p>\n
Counsel said it was the prosecution\u2019s case Ms Lawrence shot Mr O\u2019Connor in the stomach intending to kill him. \u201cShe was not acting alone,\u201d counsel said. Mr O\u2019Higgins said Mr van der Westhuizen, who was also armed, was described by one of the witnesses as having finished Mr O\u2019Connor off.<\/p>\n
Mr O\u2019Higgins said it appeared Mr van der Westhuizen \u201cgrappled\u201d with Mr O\u2019Connor, who was then shot in the head. He said the sequence of the two murders was unclear and it was far more likely that Mr Keegan was probably killed first when he was shot in the back of the head. <\/p>\n
The trial continues on Tuesday before Mr Justice Tony Hunt and a jury of four men and eight women.<\/p>\n
In his opening address, Mr O\u2019Higgins said the evidence will be that Mr O\u2019Connor sold drugs to Mr van der Westhuizen, who owed the deceased man in the region of \u20ac70,000.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Double murder accused Ruth Lawrence and her boyfriend acted as \u201ca unit and a tag team\u201d to \u201clure\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":86987,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[51250,615,61,60,15949,43,257],"class_list":["post-120166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-criminal-courts","tag-dublin","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-meath","tag-news","tag-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120166\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}