Man holding baby son shot four times, inquest told

A JURY has returned a verdict of unlawful killing at an inquest into the death of a man who was shot dead as he was carrying his 18- month-old son into his home in Co Cork.

Edward Cummins (31), who had a conviction for drug dealing, died after he was hit four times. He was shot as he was returning with his partner Michelle Cunningham and their son, Eddie jnr, to their rented house at Greenfields, Ballincollig, at about 10pm on August 13th, 2005.

“I was still standing at the front door and Eddie was bringing in small Eddie from the car . . . the next thing I heard a shot and I looked around and I saw a guy behind Eddie with his hand up to his back. I saw a gun in his right hand,” Ms Cunningham said.

“As I looked around he fired a second shot, there was definitely two shots but there may have been more. Eddie had his back to the gunman when he was shot . . . Eddie was lying on the driveway on his back and small Eddie was lying beside him with leg caught under Eddie.”

Ms Cunningham said the gunman, who then ran across a green area at nearby Fernwalk, looked like a man she had seen outside their house the previous night when he stopped to light a cigarette, but he took so long to do that she believed he was casing the house. Ms Cunningham’s friend Linda Geasley told how Mr Cummins had put his son on the bonnet of the car and was tickling him just seconds before the gunman came up and shot him.

The inquest also heard from three teenage witnesses who told how a red or wine-coloured Toyota pulled into a cul-de-sac at Fernwalk about 30 minutes before the shooting.

A man went over to Mr Cummins’s house but returned to the car when he found no one at home.

He waited in the car until Mr Cummins and his family returned. He got out of the Toyota, went over to a tree, retrieved a gun and jogged over to Mr Cummins’s house, jumped on a boundary wall and shot him.

Det Garda David O’Callaghan told how he had been off-duty in a house nearby when he heard what he thought were shots. He emerged to see a man running across the green to a car before he attended to Mr Cummins and began CPR but without success.

Mr Cummins, who was bleeding heavily, was taken by ambulance to Cork University Hospital where doctors tried to resuscitate him but he was pronounced dead at 10.45pm. A postmortem revealed he had been shot four times.

Gardaí found the car used by the gunman and his accomplice burned out some 1½ miles away at Ballinagully waterfall. They found a Browning semi-automatic in the car which ballistic tests showed was the gun used to kill Mr Cummins.

Det Sgt Denis Cahill said gardaí had carried out an extensive investigation including taking 250 witness statements and arresting 11 people. A file was sent to the DPP but the DPP directed that no charges were possible in the case.

After the jury returned a verdict of unlawful killing, Cork city coroner Dr Myra Cullinane extended her sympathies to Mr Cummins’s family, while Garda Insp Mick Maguire sympathised on behalf of the Garda, saying it was “a callous and brutal killing”.

Mr Cummins’s family issued a statement, thanking gardaí and medical staff for their help and their friends for their support.