A TIPPERARY father-of-one has been found guilty of murdering his “best friend” and neighbour while he slept, because he believed he “grassed him up”.
John Paul Buck (29), Heywood Close, Clonmel, was also found guilty of arson.
Buck fatally stabbed Fergus Roche (30) at a vacant house in the estate on October 1st, 2005. He then set fire to the house, the Central Criminal Court heard during a two-week trial.
The jury of six men and six women reached a majority verdict of 11 to 1 on both counts after almost six hours of deliberation.
Buck had seven previous convictions, including for burning down a community centre, causing £100,000 damage, and burning a number of cars around Clonmel. He was jailed previously for attacking and robbing a baker on his way to work. He also had burglary conviction.
During the two-week trial, the court heard that Mr Roche, a father of one, had a single stab wound to the chest when firemen pulled him from a blaze in an unoccupied house. A postmortem found that he died of the injury before the fire started and had no defensive wounds, indicating that he was stabbed while asleep.
The vacant house was next door to the one he shared with his partner and child. It is understood he decided to sleep there after spending most of his last day drinking around the town and failing to get an answer when he knocked on his front door.
Buck had denied all involvement, but on the final day of evidence last Friday, Det Garda Larry Bergin said Buck had confessed to him in August 2006.
He said Buck told him he had stabbed Mr Roche in the chest once while he was sleeping because he “grassed him up”.
At Buck’s request, the detective had met him alone in his patrol car and switched off his phone. When Det Gda Bergin tried to caution him, Buck told him the admission was worthless because it was not on tape.
Mr Roche’s partner of 13 years and mother of his child, Susan Farrell, raised a number of motives and connected Buck to the murder weapon. She testified that she had an affair with Buck even though he was her first cousin, that Mr Roche knew and was angry. She also said it was possible Mr Roche had taken a kilo of Buck’s cannabis. She said Buck had shown the couple a knife similar to the one found at the murder scene.
A number of neighbours said they witnessed Buck threaten Mr Roche shortly before his death. One neighbour, Lilly Spillane, said she heard them fight outside the boarded-up house hours before Mr Roche’s body was found.
Buck’s hair was singed the day after the crimes and CCTV footage of the fire starting showed a person, who appeared to have caught fire, running from the blaze.
Mr Justice George Bermingham imposed the mandatory life sentence for murder backdated to January 24th, 2008, when he went into custody. He imposed a concurrent five-year sentence for the arson.
A victim impact statement read on behalf of the family, said Mr Roche’s seven-year-old son would make his Communion next year without his father.