Jury in murder trial to resume deliberations on Thursday

The jury in the trial of a 34-year-old Dubliner, charged with murdering two men, who were on their way to sell him a car they had stolen will resume deliberations on Thursday morning.

Jason O'Driscoll, with an address at Richmond Avenue, Fairview, has pleaded not guilty to murdering 31-year-old Anthony Burnett and 25-year-old Joseph Redmond in Co. Louth on March 7th, 2012.

The Central Criminal Court trial has heard that firefighters were called to a burning car in Ravensdale Forest Park shortly before 11 o’clock that night. Two bodies were discovered inside, with gunshot wounds to their heads.

The six-week trial heard they had left their homes to travel north to sell O’Driscoll a Volkswagen Golf they had stolen in Sandymount that morning. It’s the State’s case that the accused had attended and participated in their “assassination” at Ravensdale.

However, the defence barrister raised the possibility that another person was responsible or that one of the deceased had betrayed the other, leading to someone else shooting them dead in the stolen car.

Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy sent the seven men and five women of the jury out to begin deliberations on Tuesday, telling them that their verdict must be unanimous.