A MAN charged with murder has admitted assaulting the victim at his flat in Cork city and dumping his body on waste ground in Co Kerry but he insists that he never intended to kill him and that he planned to leave his body on Banna Strand so it would be found.
John Walsh (45) said he and John McManus fought over a missing phone after they drank cider and took prescription tablets at Mr McManus’s flat at Verdon Place, Wellington Road, Cork, but he said he never intended to kill him.
“I am heartbroken over my friend, I cannot understand how he died, I wasn’t hitting him that hard,” said Mr Walsh.
“When I look in the mirror, I can see John as well, it’s not just myself anymore. I’m going to have to live with this for the rest of my life.”
Mr Walsh, Ballinlough, Cork, and Gillian Purcell (34), Hollyhill, Cork, and the Simon Community, Anderson’s Quay, Cork, both deny the murder of Mr McManus at his flat at Verdon Place between October 28th and November 7th 2008.
Mr Walsh told the Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork how he had become friendly with Mr McManus when they were both in jail and they later used to socialise together in Cork, but a row broke out when he called to Mr McManus’s flat on October 30th, 2008.
They had both been drinking cider and taking tablets and a punching match started. Mr McManus banged his head against an armchair and when he picked himself up he was angry and said that he was going to cut him with a knife, said Mr Walsh.
Mr Walsh said that he hit Mr McManus with a leg or an arm from the chair but they were “just ordinary whacks” and he didn’t mean to hurt him.
“We bashed and crashed and fell over everything that was in the flat, banged off tables, banged off chairs, we weren’t feeling anything over the tablets and drink.
“We fell by the door. He kept coming at me like a wild man, I don’t know was it the drugs or the alcohol, I was trying to calm him down. I gave him a few punches. I didn’t mean to hit him that hard but I think that was when I knocked out his teeth,” he said.
Mr Walsh said Mr McManus went to sleep on the bed but he was concerned he might get a knife and try and attack him again if he woke up, so he took one of his laces and used it to tie his hands together.
“He went to sleep on the bed. I slept on the couch. I went in to call him in the morning. He didn’t wake up. I checked his pulse and I checked his breathing. He was perfect before that.
“I got a panic attack. I put him under the bed. I ran out the door. I got heroin and got stoned for a few days . . . I didn’t want to leave him under the bed. I was thinking I can’t leave him there, I’ll put him in the car. I’ll put him on the beach, he’ll be found on the beach.”
The case continues.