A woman who murdered her boyfriend’s four-year-old son, who died after suffering severe head and liver injuries, has been jailed for life at the Central Criminal Court.
Tegan McGhee (32), a native of Limerick and of no fixed abode, had pleaded guilty four days into her trial last November to the murder of Mason O’Connell Conway.
She had also admitted to two charges of child cruelty from the outset, and was sentenced to 4½ years for each, to run concurrently.
Mason died on March 16th, 2021, due to injuries suffered three days earlier at a rented home in Limerick city where McGhee then lived with her then partner, John Paul O’Connell.
READ MORE
O’Connell (36) is separately serving a seven-year jail sentence after pleading guilty to endangerment, neglect and impeding the apprehension or prosecution of McGhee, knowing or believing she had murdered his son.
The trial judge, Mr Justice Paul McDermott, said O’Connell’s actions were “shameful” and he bore a high level of criminal responsibility for failing to nurture and protect his son.
During Wednesday’s hearing, Mason’s mother, Elizabeth Conway, who was accompanied by family members, held a small woollen hat, the hat worn by Mason in a framed photograph she had placed on the witness bench when reading her statement on Monday.
The judge lifted an order which had prevented identification of the accused, O’Connell and Mason.
Lawyers for RTÉ and Mediahuis had applied for the lifting of the order, which had been imposed for legal reasons.
That order was lifted on certain conditions.
In his sentence ruling, Mr Justice McDermott said the mandatory sentence for murder was life and he was imposing that sentence.
He imposed sentences of 4½ years, to run concurrent to the murder charge, on each of the child cruelty charges admitted by McGhee at the outset of the trial.
After his ruling, as McGhee, who had sat impassively throughout, left court, a woman shouted that she hoped she would “rot in hell”.
In his ruling, the judge said numerous witnesses had said access to Mason in the days up to his death was restricted. He was not made available to people who called, including a friend who called with chocolate eggs for him, and callers were told he was under discipline.
The evidence showed Mason was, for a period of his young life, effectively isolated from those nearest and dearest to him and had suffered abusive assaults.
The fact he was effectively kept out of sight from family and friends was “indicative of abuse of a continuing nature”.
The period prior to his death must have been a “very frightening, bewildering” period, he said. There was evidence McGhee was having difficulty coping, but there was also evidence she and her partner continued to mete out sanctions to the child.
An “appalling breach of trust” was involved, he said.
It took courage for Mason’s mother to give a very moving statement about the impact of her son’s death on herself and her family but she had done so “with poise and dignity”, he said.
Outside court, Ms Conway said that although the family had got justice for her “beautiful son”, “nothing will ever bring Mason back”.
“The last five years I’ve been living in hell and then hearing what my poor little man dealt with in the days, weeks, months up to his death. I have never heard so much evil in all my life. It’s every parent’s worst nightmare, only mine came true in the worst way possible.
“Mason was only four years old, an innocent baby, when two very evil people, Tegan McGhee and John Paul O’Connell, robbed him of his life.”
Mason, she said, was “such a lovely, caring, clever little child who brought so much love and happiness into our lives” and with “the biggest brown eyes and a smile from ear to ear”.
He was a typical four-year-old little boy who loved cars, bikes, school, playing with his siblings and friends and being in his mam’s arms, she said.
“Mason wasn’t just my son, he was my everything.
“I couldn’t wait to watch Mason grow up and reach his life’s milestones but unfortunately I will never see my son alive again.”
Only for the gardaí, McGhee and O’Connell would have got away with their lies, she said.
“Our family is forever broken, nothing is or will ever be the same but Mason, my boy, you will never be forgotten by the ones who loved you.”
Ms Conway concluded her statement by thanking the gardaí involved in the investigation and all who assisted the family throughout their ordeal.
In court on Monday, McGhee’s counsel, Michael Lynn, SC, had said he was instructed to say she was “profoundly sorry”.
McGhee, the court heard, was placed in foster care aged 14 after her mother died and her other siblings were also fostered. She was in a relationship with O’Connell for some years before Mason’s death.
Some months before the child’s death, Ms Conway, because she was then suffering mental health issues, voluntarily gave custody of her son to his father and McGhee.
Mason had attended creche while living with his mother, but this stopped when the new custody arrangements were put in place.
The court heard McGhee had told gardaí the four-year-old was a “bold” and “cheeky” child who was sometimes confined to his bedroom where he was not permitted to sit on the bed and had to sit on the floor.
Over four days to March 13th, 2021, when Mason’s father called an ambulance, claiming his son had fallen from his top bunk bed and could not be roused, the child was confined to his bedroom and allowed out only for food or to go to the bathroom.
O’Connell said his son was the “clumsiest” child ever and had run into a door some weeks previously and “burst” his eye.
A paramedic considered the child’s posture was indicative of brain damage and noted “yellowish” bruising, suggesting older injuries.
Dr Stephen O’Riordan, who reviewed the child’s case after he was taken to hospital, said the “whole theatre gasped” when they saw Mason covered in bruises.
He documented 17 areas of bruising or injury to both eyes, ears, arms, legs and back and said the “black eyes,” combined with bruises around both ears, were “classic signs of physical abuse”.
There were possible “grab marks” on one shoulder and to the left elbow, multiple bruises on the back and chest, and a “hugely extensive injury” to the back of the head. A laceration to the boy’s liver would have been caused by “extreme force” and would normally be associated with a car crash, he said.
State Pathologist Dr Heidi Okkers told the trial the cause of death was a traumatic head injury in association with blunt-force trauma to the abdomen.
McGhee had told gardaí in later interviews she had shaken the child on March 13th, she did not know how long for, and he had fallen and banged his head. She denied murder at the outset of her trial but changed her plea four days into it and admitted murder.
The court also heard McGhee had told social workers some months prior to March 2021 that she had kicked the child on one occasion. Túsla, the court heard, had become involved with the family as a result of Ms Conway’s mental health difficulties.
