Frankie Dunne could have been ‘anyone’s father or brother or uncle’, trial hears

A 64-year-old father of three, whose body was found dismembered in the garden of an unoccupied house in Cork three years ago, could have been “anybody’s father or brother or uncle”, a murder trial has heard.

Cork Simon key worker Mary O’Driscoll said that she knew Frankie Dunne well from her work with him at Clanmornin House on Boreenamanna Road since he moved into the high support unit in July 2019 after he came there from Cork Simon’s shelter on Anderson’s Quay in the city centre.

“Frankie could have been anyone’s father or brother or uncle in Ireland. He loved music. His family were very important to him. They were very much in contact with him. He would visit them about once a week. They were very involved in music and traditional Irish music was his life.”

Ms O’Driscoll was giving evidence on the third day of the trial of chef, Ionut Cosmin Nicolescu (30), from Branista Village, Damovita County, Romania, who denies the murder of Mr Dunne at Castle Greine House on Boreenamanna Road on a date unknown between December 27th and 28th 2019.

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Cross-examined by Mr Nicolescu’s counsel, Phillipp Rahn SC, Ms O’Driscoll told the jury of four men and eight women at the Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork that Mr Dunne could be cantankerous when he was intoxicated but that he was very manageable.

She acknowledged that she was aware that Mr Dunne had been involved in a physical altercation with another resident at Clanmornin House earlier that year, but it was a relatively minor incident “in the scale of things – 99 per cent of the time with Frankie, it was verbal”.

Ms O’Driscoll said that Mr Dunne had alcohol addiction issues, but he didn’t drink every day, “maybe once or twice a week” and he was reducing his drinking and was invested in coming to terms with his addiction and making a go of living in the high support unit.

Cork Simon Social worker Sinead Quinlan said Clanmornin House residents were not allowed bring alcohol into the house and they would often hide their alcohol in bushes and drink elsewhere and she also played down defence suggestions that Mr Dunne could be violent towards other residents.

“Frankie was a big talker. He could talk for Ireland. He was good craic. He was funny. When he was out you would notice he wasn’t in the house,” said Ms Quinlan, adding that sometimes there was confrontations between the residents as many of them were people “with big personalities”.

Fellow Cork Simon staff member Don Bulman said that he didn’t think Mr Dunne was capable of physical violence but when Mr Rahn listed two incidents from a log where Mr Dunne threw a fork at another resident and threatened to break another resident’s jaw, he too played down the incidents.

“You must look at the bigger picture. We are dealing with people with severe substance issues. These outbursts do accompany it. With alcohol, unfortunately, this comes out. 95 per cent of our service users would present in this way. They depend on alcohol.

“We see this every day of the week – this would be typical, this is just leaving off steam,” said Mr Bulman, adding that Mr Dunne wasn’t a big drinker but was trying to reduce his intake and he was “one of the better ones, he got on with everyone”.

Both Ms Quinlan and Mr Bulman testified that they last saw Mr Dunne when he left Clanmorin House around 7.20pm/7.30pm on the night of December 27th 2019, and the jury also heard evidence from another witness who later served him in The Offie Off Licence on Douglas St.

Tadhg Hennessy Burke said that he didn’t know Mr Dunne’s name, but he did know him to see from coming into the off-licence and he recalled him calling on the evening of December 27th as he recognised him a few days later when his photo appeared in the papers.

“I remember that night. We were speaking about Christmas, from what I recall. He was saying “Santa never came to me”. I remember feeling very sad for him. He seemed sober but not in good form ... I think his order was a bottle of wine and a few cans of beer,” said Mr Hennessy Burke.

Earlier the jury also heard evidence from Sgt Eoin Buckley of the Garda Scenes of Crime Unit who told how he had crawled in under a tree in the grounds of Castle Greine House where Mr Dunne’s body had been found on December 18th by local man, Joe Pierce searching for his cat.

“I crawled in under the tree. I could see there were two arms – he had been dismembered – and they were hanging over the branch of the tree. There were two bags. One had clothing. And just by holding the other, I believed it contained a human head,” he said.

The trial continues.