A Dublin man has been convicted of the murder of a lifelong friend who asked him to shoot him to avoid a trial for a separate killing. In a unanimous verdict, a jury at the Central Criminal Court found Paul McCarthy guilty of the murder of Mr Martin Comerford.
McCarthy (37), of Chamber Court, Chamber Street, Dublin, had admitted shooting his friend, Mr Comerford (36), a father of three from Tom Kelly Road flats, Charlemont Street, Dublin, at around 2:20 a.m. on Monday, April 26th, 1999, but denied an intent to kill or cause serious injury.
Mr Comerford's body was found where McCarthy shot him at the bottom of a laneway off Ontario Terrace, Lower Mount Pleasant Avenue, Ranelagh, on Monday, April 26th, 1999. Mr Comerford had been due to go on trial that very day for the murder of Mr Anthony Beatty, a Dublin man shot dead in a city pub on November 30th, 1997.
The Deputy State Pathologist, Dr Marie Cassidy, found that Mr Comerford died from the single shotgun blast to his chest, fired at very close range.
McCarthy had smoked heroin and drunk at least 10 pints of beer and two different spirits on the night he shot Mr Comerford. He told gardai that Mr Comerford had talked him into shooting him because he was afraid he would be convicted of Beatty's murder and would go to jail for up to 20 years.
The six-day trial heard that McCarthy admitted his involvement in the shooting soon after his arrest on May 11th, 1999. In circumstances which the Mr Paul McDermott SC, prosecuting, described as "bizarre", McCarthy had shot his friend at his request.
The prosecution case was that under the law this was still murder, and the trial judge, Mr Justice Carney, told the jury the fact that Comerford made the request was "irrelevant" to their deliberations.
Mercy killings and euthanasia were "unknown to our law", the judge said. He added that inflicting serious injuries to a person "because he asks for them because he is into heavy sado-masochistic practices" was also unlawful.
Mr Justice Carney said: "The penalty is mandatory. I sentence the accused to imprisonment for life." There were immediate cries from the back of the court, where relatives and in-laws of both Mr Comerford and relatives and friends of McCarthy expressed their opposition to the verdict. Members of both families had supported McCarthy's claim that he did not intend to kill his childhood friend.
McCarthy, who is father to nine children by four different women, remained calm as the sentence was handed down. He winked at a relative and shook his lawyers' hands, thanking them for their efforts. One of his sons stood crying, while his current partner, Ms Eva Fitzpatrick, sobbed uncontrollably.
The trial was told Mr Comerford had taken out a £100,000 life insurance policy a month before his death and had told McCarthy he hoped his wife, Ms Karen Comerford, would benefit from it, would be happy and would meet someone else.
The defence team, led by Mr Anthony Sammon SC, with Ms Aileen Donnelly, relied on evidence that McCarthy told gardai that he knew nothing about guns and that Mr Comerford had repeatedly assured him that the ammunition was just pepper shot.