The State Pathologist yesterday said a 14-year-old Laois boy who was allegedly hammered to death by a school friend died from "blunt force trauma to his head".
The 16-year-old accused, who cannot be named for legal reasons, denies murdering the 14-year-old schoolboy in Co Laois on November 11th, 2003.
The deceased, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was found on waste ground around 11 p.m. on November 11th, 2003.
Dr Marie Cassidy, the State Pathologist, said the deceased suffered "six separate blows to his head", five of which were "inflicted in rapid succession" while he was lying on the ground.
"The young man was upright when the first blow was struck on the right side of his head. This blow could have caused him to collapse to the ground and lose consciousness," Dr Cassidy said.
The teenager, she said, "would have died immediately". He would have "been unable to defend himself".
The State Pathologist said the schoolboy was "missing fragments from the base of his skull". She said the "skull had been broken up and was like a jigsaw \ some of these pieces had fallen out of the wound".
In her evidence, Dr Cassidy said fragments of the teenager's skull were found around his collar and under his right hand. She said the head injuries were caused by a hammer or some other type of weapon.
Dr Cassidy said the victim would have died around 6.30 p.m. on November 11th, 2003. The father of the accused told the Central Criminal Court that his son had been living with him for six months. The father told the jury that he had only become part of his son's life in 2003. Before that, the accused had been living with his mother in his grandparents' house.
His 16-year-old son, he said, had attempted suicide in September 2003 and he "was very worried about him".
On November 11th, 2003, between 6.15 p.m. and 7.15 p.m, both father and son had an appointment with a nun who is a psychotherapist. In the early hours of November 12th, gardaí called to the accused's home, where his father gave permission for officers to speak to his son in connection with the investigation into the schoolboy's death.
At 3.30 a.m., gardaí came and took the accused away, his father said. "I went down the barracks to be with him," he said.
A teacher of the accused told the jury of five men and seven women that on November 11th last, he was teaching metalwork to the accused in the last class of the day.
The teacher said gardaí, as part of their investigation, came to the school to inquire about what hammers were used in school. The teacher discovered that "two hammers were missing".
The teacher said that on November 11th, the accused "came to his attention" in class. "He had something in his pocket but he refused to remove it", the teacher said. The teacher told the court that the accused had said he "wasn't a garda and that he had no right to search him".
A classmate of the accused told the court that at 7.15 p.m. on the night in question, he was out with two of his friends when they were joined by the accused. The student alleges that the accused said: "I would love to kill someone, someone that no one would care about."
Another classmate of the accused claimed in court that the 16-year-old accused "wondered what it's like to kill someone" and that he would like to try it out on the deceased first.
A close friend of the accused, and who knew the defendant "since I was a child", claimed the accused confessed to the alleged murder.
After he rang him late on the night the Laois teenager lost his life, the friend claims the accused told him that he was "after killing someone and leaving him down the banks".
Two more calls followed late into the night, with the accused's friend claiming that he asked the defendant, "Are you serious?", to which he replied "Yes".
"I said, 'Is he dead?' and he said, 'Yes'." Later that night, the accused allegedly texted the school friend, telling him that another Laois boy "is after telling the gardaí on me".