The 61-year-old man found dead at his home in Macroom suffered 11 stab wounds, 19 slashes and 23 bruises and lacerations, the pathologist told the jury, who were also told Monday by another witness of a carving knife being discovered in the hold a bus.<\/p>\n
Dr Margaret Bolster, assistant state pathologist, told Ms Justice Siobh\u00e1n Lankford and the six men and six women of the jury in the Macroom murder trial the injuries could have been inflicted by the long carving knife which was shown to her, or by a knife similar to this.<\/p>\n
The prosecution alleges 61-year-old Michael Foley was murdered at his home in Annville, Barrett\u2019s Place, Macroom, on February 1 2024. 32-year-old Daniel Hourigan, who is originally from Farranree in Cork City, pleaded not guilty to his murder.<\/p>\n
Dr Bolster gave evidence of the wounds and injuries she found on Mr Foley\u2019s body when she conducted an autopsy on his remains at Cork University Hospital after Michael Foley was found dead in his home.<\/p>\n
Dr Bolster said the wounds she found on Mr Foley included 11 stab wounds, five of which were to the left arm, four to the chest, one to the abdomen and one to the thigh. Describing the 19 slash or incised wounds, Dr Bolster said 12 were to the forehead and seven were to the left elbow and arm.<\/p>\n
One of the stab wounds pierced Mr Foley\u2019s right lung, leading to its collapse, and one of the slash wounds penetrated his skull and caused the loss of a lot of blood.<\/p>\n
The pathologist said there was no evidence a slash wound alone caused death in this case. She said it was a combination of all the stab and slash injuries that led to death of Michael Foley.<\/p>\n
\u201cSlash wounds and stab wounds led to extensive haemorrhage and death,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Dr Bolster also said toxicology tests revealed the deceased had a blood alcohol concentration of 227mgs of alcohol per 100mls of blood.<\/p>\n
Cross-examined by Ray Boland, defence counsel for Mr Hourigan, Dr Bolster agreed an alcohol concentration level of 227mgs of alcohol per 100mls of blood would could cause disinhibition and aggression and could affect a person\u2019s ability to defend themselves and their coordination.<\/p>\n
Bus \u00c9ireann driver Paudie McKenna gave evidence of finding the knife, which he believed was stained with either rust or dried blood.<\/p>\n
On February 1, 2024, at 11.20am, Mr McKenna picked up passengers at Macroom on the bus he drove from Tralee to Cork City. He described a man and woman who got on together and left a black plastic refuse sack after them in the cargo hold. At the end of his work day, he looked into the bag.<\/p>\n
\u201cCuriosity got the better of me. I said I\u2019d have a look and see was it rubbish or someone\u2019s belongings. I don\u2019t want to throw anyone\u2019s belongings away,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The first thing he noticed when he tore open a hole in the black plastic bag was a strong smell of fluoride, or something like toothpaste.<\/p>\n
\u201cNext to the pair of sneakers [in the bag] I saw a long knife. I took the knife out of the bag. I had a good look at the knife,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Garda\u00ed contacted him subsequently. As soon as he was contacted, he asked the guard if it was about the man and woman who got on the bus at Macroom.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Under cross-examination, he agreed with defence senior counsel Ray Boland, in relation to the man getting on the bus: \u201cHe seemed out of it. He had a stare in his eyes. She [woman with him] seemed to be in charge. He looked scared, he looked worried.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Describing the man\u2019s appearance he said: \u201cThe male was low-sized, he had a kind of long goatee beard. I am not trying to make a joke but he reminded me of Super Mario with his head kind of bobbling along. That kind of came to my mind.\u201d Mr McKenna said.<\/p>\n
Prosecution senior counsel Jane Hyland explained what was meant by the response to the murder charge made by the accused when he said: \u201cNot guilty of murder but guilty of assisting an offender under Section 7 Subsection 2 of the Criminal Law Act 1997.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
She said in non-legal language, \u201cwhat that means is that he is saying to you that he helped another person when they committed an offence to prevent them being caught,\u201d but that he is not guilty of murder.<\/p>\n
The trial continues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 61-year-old man found dead at his home in Macroom suffered 11 stab wounds, 19 slashes and 23…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":536326,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[79,54,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-536325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-cork-news","tag-courts","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536325","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=536325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536325\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}