THE BODY of a 25-year-old man missing from Cork city was found dumped in a gully in Co Kerry after a garda became suspicious when he saw a car with a passenger but no driver in a quiet lay-by, a murder trial heard yesterday
Garda Daniel O’Connor told how he found the body of John McManus (25) after he returned with colleagues to a lay-by at Ardcullen, Ballyduff, in Co Kerry on November 6th, 2008, where he had earlier stopped a car driven by John Walsh accompanied by Gillian Purcell.
Mr Walsh (45) from Carrigmore Park, Ballinlough, Cork, and Ms Purcell (34) with an address c/o Cork Simon Community, both deny the murder of John McManus at Wellington Road, Cork, between October 28th and November 7th, 2008.
Yesterday at the Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork, Garda O’Connor told how he saw a man emerge from some bushes at the lay-by and get into the Opel Astra beside a woman and drive off despite his attempts to signal him to stop. When he managed to stop the car, the driver got out and walked to him . . . “The first thing that struck me about the man was his eyes. They were popping out of his head.
“He looked high on drugs. He seemed very nervous and shaky,” he told the court.
He asked Mr Walsh to open the boot where he noticed some blood and Mr Walsh told him he had been fishing a month before.
However, when he pointed out to Mr Walsh that he had said he only had the car a week, Mr Walsh said he must have been fishing more recently.
Garda O’Connor also noticed a new shovel wrapped in plastic in the back seat and jokingly asked him: “Were you planning to bury somebody with that?”
Mr Walsh told him he had bought it because he was working in the building trade.
Garda O’Connor impounded the car for not having a valid NCT certificate but had not arrested Mr Walsh or Ms Purcell and when he returned to the scene with colleagues, they found the bundle of clothes turned out to be Mr McManus’s body.
The case continues.