AN ELDERLY man who was stabbed to death in an apartment complex for the elderly had brought home the man believed to have killed him, an inquest heard yesterday.
Vincent Joseph Plunkett (80), Robinson's Court, Cork Street, Dublin, was found lying in a pool of blood on his living-room floor by his home help on August 14th, 2006, Dublin City Coroner's Court heard yesterday.
His throat had been slit and he had been stabbed in the chest.
Karen Murtagh of Home Help Services, Rialto, made the discovery shortly before midday and Mr Plunkett was pronounced dead at the scene.
Mr Plunkett had returned home to his apartment in a taxi accompanied by a man in his early 20s in the early hours of the morning of August 13th.
That same man, who was identified from fingerprints found at the scene and in a van which belonged to Mr Plunkett, and from CCTV footage with Mr Plunkett in Dublin city centre that same night, was subsequently arrested.
A file was sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions and Gerard Cullen Brady (22), of no fixed abode, was charged with murdering Mr Plunkett. The trial never went ahead, however, as Mr Brady died in custody in the Midlands Prison on March 30th, 2007.
The inquest heard that taxi driver Anthony Canavan collected Mr Plunkett and a man in his early 20s at the taxi rank on Aston Quay at 12.58am on August 13th and brought the two back to Robinson's Court.
At the time, Mr Canavan said in a statement, he thought "it was a bit weird - a young man carrying an outdoor bag and an old man in an overcoat".
A murder weapon was never recovered but Mr Brady had told gardaí the weapons in question were a knife and a scissors, which he said he threw out of a vehicle on the N4, Det Garda John Brady of Kevin Street Garda station said.
A postmortem by Deputy State Pathologist Dr Michael Curtis found that Mr Plunkett died from a penetrating wound to his chest with a cut-throat injury and blunt-force trauma to the head.
A jury of four women and two men returned a unanimous verdict of death by unlawful killing under the direction of the coroner, Dr Brian Farrell.
Dr Farrell expressed his condolences to Mr Plunkett's family including his niece, Mary O'Donovan.
"This was a particularly violent crime," Dr Farrell said.
Mr Plunkett lived in Athlone, Co Westmeath, all his life until up to five years before his death, when he moved to Dublin.