A Belfast man went on trial yesterday charged with murdering a schoolgirl, whose body was left to decompose in a coal-bunker for nearly five years. Belfast Crown Court prosecutor Mr Pat Lynch claimed that Mr James (jnr) McKinstry Craig (26) "beat the life out of" Sonia Forsythe (13). He also claimed that on the night she disappeared on June 30th, 1991, Mr Craig battered her with a poker, fracturing her skull, cheek and jaw.
Mr Lynch said Mr Craig then hid her body in a cupboard before wrapping it in a carpet and dumping it under eight inches of coal in a bunker behind his Sydney Street West home, in the Shankill area, Belfast.
For nearly five years, the body was hidden until April 1st, 1996, when - two weeks after the RUC failed to find it during a search of the house - workmen clearing the bunker made the find. All that was left of the schoolgirl were her skull, upper body bones and decomposing flesh of her lower torso.
Mr Lynch told the court the case against Mr Craig was circumstantial but, having heard the evidence, they would have no doubt he was the man who "beat the life out of Sonia Forsythe".
Mr Craig has denied Ms Forsythe was in his flat the night she disappeared. However, Mr Lynch claimed a self-confessed "nosey" neighbour spotted him with a girl outside his home that night. So curious was she about the couple that from her darkened bedroom she watched them sitting on a settee in Mr Craig's living-room.
Mr Lynch also claimed if Mr Craig was not the killer then he was an unfortunate innocent man who had returned to his flat unaware a murder had been committed in it. He never noticed blood staining in two cupboards, that one of his carpets was missing, or that a body, wrapped in the carpet, was causing an "obstruction" in his coal bunker.
Others, including a neighbour, had noticed a foul smell for years at the rear of their homes and had employed plumbers to uncover it but Mr Craig claimed never to have been aware of it.
Mr Lynch said state pathologist Dr Jack Crane was convinced the "horrible injuries" caused to Ms Forsythe's battered head were inflicted by the poker found in Mr Craig's flat.
It is expected that the trial of Mr Craig, who denies the murder between June 1991 and January 1992, will last several weeks.