A YOUNG Dublin man was jailed for life yesterday after he was convicted of the murder of his former girlfriend who was found battered to death in convent grounds.
Melanie Gleeson (15), of Colepark Road, Ballyfermot, died of head injuries after she was hit with a stone by Keith Kelly (19) on Hallowe'en night 1995.
A jury of eight men and four women took four hours and 20 minutes at the Central Criminal Court yesterday to convict Kelly, of Colepark Drive, Ballyfermot, Dublin, of Melanie Gleeson's murder in the grounds of the Dominican Convent, Ballyfermot, on that date.
The jury retired to consider its verdict at 11.49 a.m. and returned with a majority 10-2 decision at 6.30 p.m.
Kelly had denied the murder but had admitted manslaughter. His counsel said the central issue in the case was provocation and argued Kelly was provoked into a frenzied attack on Melanie after she told him, following sexual intercourse, that she was seeing another youth.
After the jury delivered its verdict, Mr Justice Flood said he had no option but to impose the mandatory sentence of imprisonment for life.
Some people in the public gallery whispered: "Yes" and a woman shouted: "You murderer, you." Relatives of the dead girl, including her father and grandmother, wiped away tears. Mr Kelly's family, also present for the verdict, were visibly shaken and cried.
Mr Patrick MacEntee SC, for Kelly, applied for and was granted leave to appeal. Counsel said it was in the interests of justice that the law on provocation and the meaning of excessive force in relation to provocation be clarified.
Mr Justice Flood consented to the application and also granted legal aid for an appeal. The four day trial heard that Kelly alerted workmen and staff in the Dominican College, Ballyfermot, to a body in the Peace Garden of the convent on November 1st, 1995.
Melanie Gleeson's body, naked apart from a pair of black socks, lay on the ground partially covered with Kelly's jacket. She had severe head and facial injuries. Items of her clothing were strewn around the scene.
Gardai at the scene described Kelly as shocked and tearful. Kelly initially told gardai he had found the body that morning and said nothing about his involvement in her death.
He went to Ballyfermot Garda station to make a witness statement but after giving conflicting accounts of when he last saw Melanie he broke down and said: "I didn't mean to do it, I didn't mean to do it."
Then he told gardai he felt "like a scumbag" and wanted to make a statement. He initially said he had hit Melanie on the head with a full cider can during an argument over her alleged relationship with another man but then admitted he had used a stone.
Kelly threw that stone into the Liffey near Chapelizod and although garda subaqua divers found several stones the precise stone used could not be identified.
In a statement, Kelly said he hit Melanie "three times at the tops across the side of the face and across the head" during an argument which happened after they had had sex.
"This all started after we finished intercourse," he said in a statement. "I asked her did she have sex with X, and she said to me that she did. I heard a rumour that she was doing it behind my back with him and I heard she was pregnant. I asked her was she pregnant by him and she said that it was only a rumour going around."
Kelly said "a bit of a row started then" and he had picked up a stone and hit her. "I could see blood coming out her head and then I got the scare," he said. Before he picked up the stone, he said, he had his hands around the girl's neck. "She was swinging at me and I grabbed her by the neck, holding her down."
He said when she was bleeding Melanie had said something to him like: "You're thick or an eejit."
"When I left Melanie she was still alive. I didn't think she was dead at the time," be said.
The State Pathologist, Dr John Harbison, said Melanie died as a result of lacerations of the brain as a result of multiple fractures of the skull due to multiple head injuries. There was also evidence of attempted strangulation but that did not kill the girl, he said.
He described 47 injuries on the girl's body and said the most serious were to her head which had been struck so severely that the top part of her brain was severed from the bottom portion. The indications were that Melanie was still alive when some of the injuries were inflicted.
He agreed it was a possibility that the injuries could have been inflicted by a person in a frenzy.
The court was told Kelly started going out with Melanie Gleeson from November 1993 when he was 16 and she was "13 or 14" and they went out steady for some time.