Maintenance man tells of shock to find body in refuse chute

A maintenance man has told a murder trial of his shock when a man's body came down a refuse chute he was trying to unblock in an apartment complex in Cork.

Francis Forde told the Central Criminal Court, sitting in Cork, that he was rodding a refuse chute at the Garden City apartment complex at North Main Street in Cork city on May 13th, 2013, when he made the grim discovery.

He had begun rodding the chute from the bin room to clear a blockage and had freed two bags of rubbish when he noticed a red liquid starting to seep.

“A whole lot of red liquid starting coming out of the chute. I was thinking that it was blood but then I said to myself that it couldn’t be and thought that it must be some sort of sauce.”

Mr Forde said the chute still remained blocked and although he used the torch on his mobile phone to look up, he could not see anything, so he continued rodding the chute to free it up.

“I continued to try and free it and eventually I got hold of it with the rods and it came down – it was a body,” said Mr Forde, adding that he got a terrible shock at the discovery.

So incredulous

He went out of the apartment complex and was about to ring and tell his boss but he was so incredulous over what had happened that he went back again to check he was not mistaken.

He was still so surprised that he went out into the parking area, where he spotted a man and asked him to come back in and confirm that what he had found was a body.

The man confirmed this was the case and rang gardaí, said Mr Forde, who confirmed he then informed his boss about the grim discovery.

Mr Forde was giving evidence on the second day of the trial of David O'Loughlin (27), who denies the murder of Liam Manley (59).

Opening the prosecution case, Seán Gillane SC outlined what the State would allege happened to Mr Manley, a homeless man.

He said it would allege that Mr O’Loughlin dragged Mr Manley out of his apartment, punched him and shoved him down the metal refuse chute in the complex.

He would call evidence that Mr O’Loughlin told another man, David O’Mahony, who was in his apartment at the time, that “the man was down the drain”.

Drinking separately

He said there would be evidence to show that both men, who did not know each other previously, had been drinking separately over the weekend of May 10th-12th, 2013, that they met shortly after 4am on May 12th and both entered the Garden City complex at 4.22am, where they were joined by Mr O’Mahony shortly after 6am.

Mr Gillane said Mr O'Mahony would describe Mr Manley as "older and quiet" but that Mr O'Loughlin began a verbal attack on him and it quickly escalated into a physical assault.

‘Punched in face’

“The deceased looked afraid throughout this and he was punched in the face. Mr O’Mahony pleaded with him [the accused] to stop but he was told to shut up and sit down.”

Mr Gillane said the exchange ended with Mr Manley being dragged from the apartment and Mr O’Mahony would say that he heard “the shutting of a steel door”.

The State will say that this was the sound of the refuse chute shutters closing after Mr Manley was thrown in, where he met “what can only be described as a gruesome death”.

He said the jury would hear medical evidence that Mr Manley died from mechanical asphyxia as he was trapped in the chute with rubbish above and below him.

The trial continues.