Death as ‘tragic as it was stupid’, murder trial told

Five family members and a teenager used “medieval violence” to “butcher” a father of seven in “an honour killing” during a Co Kerry funeral, carrying out a “biblical atrocity” that was “tragic and heartbreaking as it was ridiculous and stupid”, a prosecution barrister has told a jury at the Central Criminal Court in Cork.

Senior Counsel Dean Kelly, for the Director of Public Prosecutions, gave his closing speech in the murder trial of the six, submitting that “honour” had been offended when a relationship between the daughter of the deceased Thomas ‘Tom’ Dooley and one of the accused had “broken down”.

Mr Kelly said the trial had a combination of the macabre, a provincial tragedy and appalling medieval violence.

Ultimately, he added, it was a biblical atrocity of a case where one brother had killed another brother.

“Yet for all those heady phrases what was left behind was a widow with seven children in the most pointless, wasteful and needless circumstances,” Mr Kelly said.

It is the State’s case that Mr Dooley died when he was violently attacked as he attended a funeral in Tralee on 5 October 2022 and suffered what the prosecution described as savage injuries, inflicted by a group armed with bladed weapons and acting with “focused and murderous ferocity”.

The trial has heard that the 43-year-old deceased suffered a total of four stab wounds following an incident in the graveyard, one of which severed the femoral artery in his leg and caused him to suffer a fatal blood loss.

State Pathologist Dr Sally Anne Collis told the jury that some of the injuries involved could have been inflicted by a machete-type weapon.

The younger brother of the late Mr Dooley, Patrick Dooley, 36, with an address at Arbutus Grove, Killarney, Mr Dooley’s cousin, Thomas Dooley Senior, 43, and that man’s son, Thomas Dooley Junior, 21, along with Michael Dooley, 29, all of the Halting Site, Carrigrohane Road, Cork, as well as Daniel Dooley, 42, of An Carraigin, Connolly Park, Tralee, Co Kerry, and a male teenager, have pleaded not guilty to murdering Mr Dooley at Rath Cemetery, Rathass, Tralee, on 5 October 2022.

Thomas Dooley Jnr is also charged with assault causing serious harm to the deceased’s wife, Siobhán Dooley, at Rath Cemetery on the same date. He also denies this charge.

Ms Dooley required 45 stitches and 30 staples after sustaining a wound during the attack, which went from her right shoulder to her armpit.

Addressing the jury in his closing speech, Mr Kelly said there was plainly evidence of planning in the case as the weapons used by the six accused had not arrived in the graveyard by themselves.

An intention to commit murder, he said, does not require forethought or planning and that taking part in a “murderous attack” can be formed in seconds.

Mr Kelly suggested the motive in the case was “reasonably clear” and submitted it was because of an unhappy end to a childish relationship, where two teenagers were going out together and this had broken down. He said it had resulted in what some might call “an honour killing”.

Ms Dooley gave evidence during the trial that her family and Thomas Dooley Snr’s family had broken off contact with each other when her daughter refused to marry Thomas Dooley Snr’s son, Thomas Dooley Jnr.

Ms Dooley said there was no falling out or words exchanged between her late husband Thomas and his cousin and brother-in-law Thomas Dooley Snr, but they simply stopped communicating when their daughter refused to marry Thomas Dooley Jnr.

Mr Kelly told the jury that “honour” had been offended and submitted this was “a score that was to be settled and that is as tragic and heartbreaking as it is ridiculous and stupid”.

The State, he said, had based its case against all six accused on the doctrine of joint enterprise and common design, where a number of people act together to achieve a common criminal objective and that each person party to the plan is criminally responsible for the acts of the other.

Mr Kelly told the court that it could not be established who drove the knife into Mr Dooley’s back or who chopped into his arm or who drove the knife through his thigh. He said it was not precisely known who had performed those acts.

However, he said the group of men sitting behind him in the courtroom had participated to cause at least serious harm to Mr Dooley and had done so with murderous intent.

The deceased, Mr Kelly told the jury, had been brutally murdered and suffered a stab wound, which was inflicted with so much force to cause spinal damage. He had also suffered a stab wound to the thigh, which had tracked 10.5cm into the body and severed the femoral artery.

Mr Dooley had also received a chop wound to the right arm as well as blunt force trauma injury to the head.

Mr Kelly also reminded the jury that the deceased had suffered “an utterly savage blow” to the back of the shoulder, which left a wound one foot long.

He stressed that the attack had been carried out with “absolute ferocity” in a matter of seconds and not minutes.

Mr Dooley, he said, was dying if not already dead as the accused men left the cemetery that day and were seen running back to their vans. Within a matter of seconds after the attack the six men were back at their three respective vans and speeding out the road, counsel added.

He commented that to say the movements of the defendants were curious and suspicious in the aftermath of Mr Dooley’s murder was to understate matters, particularly in the case of the deceased’s brother Patrick Dooley.

Going through Ms Dooley’s evidence to the jury, Mr Kelly said, she had described arriving at the cemetery and recalled that the man closest to her was Thomas Dooley Snr – “the father of the young man that may have married her daughter”.

He said that Ms Dooley had recounted that the deceased’s brother, Patrick Dooley, was behind Thomas Dooley Snr. He added: “She says she saw them grinning and that Thomas Dooley Snr had something in his hand and she said she told her husband to run”.

“She sees Thomas Dooley Snr taking off his coat and producing two weapons, one rusty and one shiny. She said Patrick Dooley was grinning and had a knife … She said there were two men in front and others behind”.

At this point, Mr Kelly said, all Ms Dooley could do was try to get them away from her husband so she ran in and “clawed” Thomas Dooley Snr. He said that, subsequently, the accused’s DNA was recovered from her fingernails. “How is there any innocent explanation to explain that?” he asked.

Counsel submitted that the widow’s husband was “butchered and cleaved” and had lay prone on the ground. Yet, he said, Ms Dooley had the presence of mind to go on “a DNA recovery” and scrape Thomas Dooley’s Snr’s face.

He indicated there was extremely strong forensic evidence against some of the six men and for others there was not.

The deceased had a target on his back and the accused had been present in the cemetery that day to brutally attack him. He said Mr Dooley was “prey” at that moment and was the target of the operation 37 seconds after he entered the graveyard.

Mr Kelly said the conduct of the six men on their three journeys after leaving the cemetery was on a progressive scale and stressed that every one of them had run “like rats from a ship from that scene”.

The prosecutor concluded by saying that this was undoubtedly a dark “honour killing” that had the combination of the macabre, a provincial tragedy and appalling medieval violence.

Ultimately, Mr Kelly said, it was a biblical atrocity of a case where one brother had killed another brother.

Yet, for all those “heady phrases”, what was left behind was a widower with seven children in the most pointless, wasteful and needless circumstances.

In summary, Mr Kelly warned the jurors that they would hear outrage from defence counsel in their closing speeches and undoubtedly be told about previous cases of miscarriages of justice.

“Don’t let anybody throw sand in your eyes, don’t let anybody dazzle you and take you off on tangents and irrelevant journeys,” he added.

He reminded the jury that it has a grave and difficult job ahead and suggested the members let the evidence be their guide, saying: “If you do that you can’t go wrong”.

Defence counsel Brendan Grehan for Patrick Dooley, will give his closing speech to the jury of 12 men and two women tomorrow morning.