A jury has been discharged on the eighth day of a trial of a couple charged with the murder of a father of four who was found lying in a pool of blood in a Co Cork house more than a year ago.
Daniel Hourigan (32) and Linda O’Flynn (32) had both denied the murder of Michael Foley (61) at Annville, Barrett’s Place, Macroom, Co Cork, between January 31st and February 1st, 2024, when they were arraigned at the Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork earlier this month.
But today, following legal argument in the jury’s absence, Ms Justice Siobhán Lankford told the jury a legal issue had arisen. She said she was discharging them from hearing the remainder of the case, thanked them for their service and excused them from jury service for five years.
During the trial, the jury heard Mr Foley was found with various wounds and injuries by community care nurse Ciara Harmon when she called to the chalet where he lived in Macroom on February 6th, 2024. He was subsequently pronounced dead by a local doctor.
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Assistant State Pathologist Margot Bolster, in her evidence, listed injuries she found on Mr Foley’s body when a postmortem was conducted on him at Cork University Hospital.
Dr Bolster said Mr Foley had sustained 30 knife wounds, including 11 stab wounds (which are deeper than they are long), mainly to the body and 19 slash or incision wounds (which are longer than they are deep), mainly to the head area.
One of the stab wounds pierced Mr Foley’s right lung, leading to its collapse. One of the slash wounds penetrated his skull and resulted in the loss of a lot of blood, as there is a concentration of blood vessels in the head area, which can lead to a lot of bleeding if they are severed or cut.
She said many of the slash and stab wounds to Mr Foley’s hands and arms were of a defensive nature. She also found evidence of approximately 30 bruises and lacerations all over his body, including several to his legs, but she found no evidence of any bones being broken.
“The slash wounds to the head would cause major bleeding and a slash wound to the head can alone cause death, but there is no evidence that a slash wound alone caused death in this case, and it was a combination of all the stab and slash injuries that led to death,” she said.
