{"id":504310,"date":"2026-06-17T12:21:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T12:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/504310\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T12:21:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T12:21:09","slug":"i-killed-two-people-dublin-based-family-murder-trial-hears-evidence-from-first-policeman-on-scene-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/504310\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I killed two people\u2019: Dublin-based family murder trial hears evidence from first policeman on scene \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Dublin-based French woman accused of murdering her daughter in collaboration with her deceased husband in Reykjavik, Iceland<\/a>, was heard saying \u201cI killed two people\u201d at the scene, a court was told. <\/p>\n

On the second day of the trial of Ming Ting Mancel, the court heard evidence from a policeman who was among the first on the scene at the Reykjavik Edition hotel last June. <\/p>\n

Mancel is accused of murdering her daughter Catherine Mancel (30). <\/p>\n

The bodies of Catherine Mancel and her father Emeric Mancel were found on June 14th, 2025 by hotel staff. The family had flown to Iceland on June 7th from Dublin<\/a>. <\/p>\n

They had been living in Leopardstown<\/a>, south Dublin, for the past eight years, and are believed to have travelled to Iceland to carry out a suicide pact together. <\/p>\n

Police officer Daniel \u00feor Olafsson said that the body of her husband, Emeric, had been cold under a sheet. <\/p>\n

\"TheThe Reykjavik Edition hotel. <\/p>\n

The policeman escorted her to hospital in the ambulance that morning, and told the court that Ming Ting Mancel had been very disappointed when she found out that she had a punctured lung, but that her life was not in danger. <\/p>\n

Although she admitted to killing her family, she later changed her statement, saying her husband had carried out the stabbings. <\/p>\n

A total of 14 witnesses took to the stand on Tuesday, including members of the Icelandic police force, a psychologist and hospital staff to give evidence. <\/p>\n

Last Friday, the testimony of Ming Ting Mancel accounted for almost the whole day of proceedings as the French woman was questioned for seven hours. This was followed by the statements of members of staff from the Reykjavik Edition hotel.<\/p>\n

According to the indictment by the district prosecutor, Ming Ting Mancel is accused, along with her husband, of killing her daughter by holding her down, grabbing her right upper arm, and constricting her airway for a considerable time, as well as stabbing Catherine twice in the chest with a knife, including one stab to the heart. <\/p>\n

On Friday, Ming Ting Mancel was questioned about the presence of a sleep mask found on her daughter\u2019s forehead after she had died, as well as potential defensive marks found on her neck and marks on her upper legs. <\/p>\n

\"CatherineCatherine Mancel (left) with her father Emeric Mancel (centre) at a Japanese fencing competition in Australia. Photo credit: Les Nouvelles Cal\u00e9doniennes <\/p>\n

In testimony on Tuesday, a witness spoke about CCTV and bedroom door logs from the Reykjavik Edition hotel, showing the last time that the family had returned to their rooms. <\/p>\n

The court had also heard on Friday that there were discrepancies around the times of Catherine and Emeric\u2019s deaths. The last recorded sightings of the family on CCTV was on Wednesday June 11th at 7.15pm, when they had come back to the hotel after having sushi at a nearby restaurant. The family never left the hotel again. <\/p>\n

This was 2\u00bd days before the police were informed of their deaths on Saturday, June 14th at 7.15am. <\/p>\n

The medical examiner estimated that Catherine Mancel had died at about 10am on Friday, June 13th, , and Emeric at about 11.30am that same day. <\/p>\n

However, Ming Ting Mancel said she was sure that the sushi evening and the deaths had happened on Friday night, as they had no food except for some snacks in the room. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Reykjavik murder trial hears details of Dublin-based family\u2019s collective suicide planOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

On Friday, the court heard that a suicide note mentioning AIB bank had been produced as evidence, indicating that the hotel could charge any expenses to their Irish credit card. <\/p>\n

In the note, apparently written by Emeric Mancel, the hotel was assured that the events that would transpire were in no way related to their stay. <\/p>\n

A police officer said he had reviewed data from all the phones found on the scene as well as phones and hard drives found in the Mancels\u2019 apartment in Dublin. <\/p>\n

He explained that Ming Ting Mancel\u2019s phone appeared to have been cleared of all data on the evening of Tuesday, June 10th, one day before they left the hotel room together for the last time. <\/p>\n

\"Dublin-basedDublin-based French woman Ming Ting Mancel arriving for Tuesday’s hearing at a Reykjav\u00edk court where she is on trial for the murder of her daughter Catherine in an alleged murder-suicide bid in which her husband also died. Photo: Karen McHugh <\/p>\n

Also giving evidence on Tuesday was a court-appointed psychiatrist who had met Mancel three times in the past year to assess her mental state.<\/p>\n

He said she was not suffering from a mental illness either before or after the deaths of her daughter and husband. <\/p>\n

Mancel had also told the psychiatrist that she had a relationship of equals with her husband, and that he had not forced her to do anything. But later, the court also heard that Ming Ting Mancel had said in English that \u201cmy husband attacked us\u201d.<\/p>\n

Three hospital staff members who attended to Ming Ting Mancel on the morning of her arrest also gave evidence by video-link. <\/p>\n

The trial will continue on Thursday when Emeric Mancel\u2019s New Caledonia-based sister is expected to give evidence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Dublin-based French woman accused of murdering her daughter in collaboration with her deceased husband in Reykjavik, Iceland,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":504311,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[7715,615,62,61,60,16797,43],"class_list":["post-504310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-aib","tag-dublin","tag-iceland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-leopardstown","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504310","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=504310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504310\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/504311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}