THE SISTER of a 22-year-old man shot dead near his Dublin home five years ago, has told the Central Criminal Court the man on trial for his murder was a lifelong friend and neighbour of her brother.
In her evidence at the murder trial of Aidan Finnegan yesterday, Tammy McCormack said the accused man was regularly at their family home, and would often call to see her younger brother, Dara.
She said the two had gone to school together and lived in the Canary Islands together for a time, working in bars.
Mr Finnegan (30), of Whitestown Avenue, Hartstown in Blanchardstown, has denied murdering Dara McCormack at Hartstown on February 11th, 2006.
Mr McCormack, a construction worker, died after sustaining gunshot wounds to the back, arm and head, shortly after he had left his home at Hartstown for a night out.
Ms McCormack told the court she received a text message from her brother on the night in question, which read “Tammy have you got €200 to give me to pay a bill, it’s serious . . . I wouldn’t ask only someone let me down and it’s serious.” A friend of Mr McCormack’s, John Heffernan, told the court he also received a text from Dara that night, which read “ring me, I need that money bad”.
Mr McCormack’s youngest sister, who was close friends with Finnegan’s sister at the time of the shooting, told the jury that a week before her brother’s death, she was on her way to the Mr Finnegan’s house when Dara asked her to give Aidan money for him, and handed her a bundle of €50 notes which she estimated was about €200.
Several of Mr McCormack’s neighbours who also gave evidence yesterday, described how they heard a loud bang on the evening of February 11th, and ran outside to find Mr McCormack lying on the ground and two men standing over him. The men were wearing dark clothes and had either balaclavas or hoods covering their faces, and none of the witnesses could identify them.
Darren Martin, who was first on the scene, said he heard Dara say to the men “please don’t shoot me” while kicking out with his legs in an effort to defend himself. Mr Martin’s younger brother said the taller of the two men was armed with a shotgun. Mr Martin went to help Mr McCormack when the men ran off, and rang an ambulance while several other neighbours gathered around and covered him with a blanket.
They described for the court in their evidence how Mr McCormack’s father, Thomas McCormack, arrived on the scene and knelt by his dying son while he held his hand and asked “who did this, who did this?” One young witness said he heard Dara reply with a name, which he thought was an English or Irish name, but he couldn’t remember what it was.
Brian O’Donoghue, a nurse who attended to Mr McCormack in AE at Connolly hospital Blanchardstown, told the court his last words were “I can’t believe they shot me, I know who they are”.
He described Mr McCormack as being very distressed and upset, but lucid when he said this. Mr O’Donoghue asked if he was trying to tell him something, but Mr McCormack went into cardiac arrest and died a short time later.
The trial resumes on Monday next before the jury of five men and seven women.