Two Dundalk men who last March beat an elderly man to death and then tied concrete blocks around his neck and ankles before dumping his body in Newry canal, admitted yesterday to killing him.
The pair - Noel McClory (26) and Damien McShane (34) - both of Park Avenue, Dundalk, originally denied murdering John McStravick (60). The charge was dropped when they pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter.
Following their guilty pleas Lord Justice Campbell remanded them in custody to await sentence while pre-sentence reports on them are prepared.
Downpatrick Crown Court heard that the men were high on a cocktail of drink and drugs when, in the early hours of March 20th last year, they killed Mr McStravick whose weighted body was recovered by RUC divers in the canal a week later, after McClory and McShane went to police in the border town and confessed.
They had dumped his body in the canal after they'd "panicked" on realising they'd killed Mr McStravick following a drunken argument at a party. When the trial began last Thursday, Ken McMahon for the prosecution said that, using a clothes line, the pair tied two concrete blocks around the neck and ankles of Mr McStravick's dead body before dumping it in the canal.
Two days later they fled to Dublin, but returned to Newry for several days before travelling on to London where they planned to give themselves up to police.
But they then decided to come back to Newry and, with their solicitor, went to the police.
The following day McClory took detectives to where they'd dumped Mr McStravick's body in the canal.