Man to appeal Kerry mother and daughter murder conviction

A 28-year-old Lithuanian forestry worker has appealed against his conviction by a jury last month for the double murder of a mother and daughter in Killorglin, Co Kerry in June 2013.

Aurimas Andruska of Ardmoniel Heights, Killorglin had pleaded not guilty to the murder of Jolanta Lubiene(27) and her eight year old daughter Enrika at their home at Langford Downs, Killorglin on a date between June 15 and June 17th 2013.

At the end of a five week trial at the Central Criminal Court, sitting in Tralee, Andruska was found guilty. The unanimous verdict by the jury of seven women and five men was returned in under three hours.

Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy imposed two life sentences, to run concurrently.

The appeal has been lodged by his solicitor Michael O'Donnell of Rathkeale and it is understood submissions will be on ex-jury legal argument during the trial to do with finger print evidence, discrepancies between statements on DNA evidence. There will also be a submission too on the initial questioning of Mr Andruska and two other Lithuanian persons on the side of a road in Kerry .

Andruska who did not give evidence, consistently denied a single finger print in Jolanta’s blood on the stairwell was his and in Garda interviews he repeatedly denied killing the mother and daughter.

Jolanta had been stabbed 61 times and found on the kitchen floor and the child was found upstairs in a pool of blood. She had been stabbed eleven times. There was blood all over the house and someone had walked “on the wet blood of Enrika,” the trial heard.

No motive was ever put forward for the murders. No murder weapon was produced. DNA found on Enrika’s top was from a visit to the house days before the murder when the child’s clothes were on the couch, he told gardaí.