Two women who pleaded guilty to killing a man by suffocating him with a plastic bag have been sentenced to six years in prison.
Anna Marie Pezzillo (35), of no fixed abode, and Rachel Comiskey (35), of Dodsboro Cottages, Lucan, Dublin, pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Ian Quinn (32) at Annally Grove, Ongar, Dublin between May 30th and 31st, 2014.
Their pleas were accepted by the State in March and Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy sentenced them on Monday at the Central Criminal Court.
He said the mitigating factors in the case were their guilty pleas and interviews they gave to gardaí detailing what happened on the night Mr Quinn lost his life.
They told gardaí that they had been drinking heavily and taking drugs and that a fight broke out and they put the bag over Mr Quinn’s head to frighten him.
The judge sentenced Pezzillo to eight years with two suspended and Comiskey to six years.
He said he was giving Pezillo a longer sentence as she has 112 previous convictions and has shown “that over many years she was a person who had no respect at all or capacity to obey the law.” Comiskey has 12 previous convictions.
The final two years of Pezillo’s sentence will be suspended on the condition that she abide by the directions of the probation services, abstain from illegal drugs and submit to any drug treatment programme recommended by the probation service. Both sentences were backdated to when they first went into custody.
Wrong turn
Mr Justice McCarthy said the deceased had a relationship with Comiskey for about 12 years. He was a person who had advantages in life but he took a wrong turn at an early age, causing trouble for his family. His lifestyle involved the use of drugs and alcohol and he lived on the streets or in homeless accommodation from time to time.
However, the judge said the Quinn family’s trauma over his death had not been diminished by the fact his life did not adhere to the standards they would have hoped for.
The judge said sentencing is not an exercise in vengeance and that the factors he must consider are the need to punish the offender, set a deterrant both for society in general and the convicted persons, and to provide for rehabilitation.
“People do not lose their humanity because they have committed a serious crime,” he said.
He added that the two-year suspension of Pezillo’s sentence would help her to be reintroduced into society.
During a sentence hearing last month, the court heard that Pezillo and Comiskey emerged from the flat at Annally Grove in the early hours of May 31st, 2014 and got a passerby to raise the alarm.
When emergency services arrived, Mr Quinn’s body was cold, showing signs of rigor mortis and was in a bedroom dressed in boxer shorts.
Comiskey told gardaí that beforehand Mr Quinn was “swinging me around the place” and that they put a bag over his head and said: “How do you like it?”
She also maintained that they had not intended to kill Mr Quinn, but wanted to frighten him.
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The women were arrested and questioned but subsequently released from custody. Shortly afterwards an article appeared on the front page of the Sunday World in which Pezillo admitted her role in the killing. She said all three of them had been drinking and taking tablets and fell asleep.
When they woke up Mr Quinn had wet himself and Comiskey took his jeans and top off. Mr Quinn became annoyed and a fight broke out. Pezillo thought Mr Quinn was going to hit Comiskey so she intervened but was struck in the face.
She said they put the bag over his head for “just a few seconds” and afterwards they thought he had passed out. The two women went to bed and when they woke up they realised he was dead.
In interviews with gardaí, Pezillo accepted that what was said in the article was largely true, although she felt some of it was exaggerated. The women wrote letters to the court expressing their remorse for the killing.
Michael Bowman SC, for Pezillo, said she had consumed four bottles of vodka and taken tablets before the incident. His client started taking drugs aged 13 and was living rough by the age of 18.
He pointed out that the State Pathologist, Prof Marie Cassidy, had said deaths by suffocation from plastic bags leave no trace. Therefore the statements made by Pezillo were of critical importance to the prosecution.
In her letter, Pezillo said she feels remorse, sorrow and shame for what she did and if she could swap places with Mr Quinn, she would.
Tara Burns SC, for Comiskey, told the court that her client had a good family and had opportunities but took a wrong track in her teens, began drinking and quickly moved on to tablets and then heroin.
In her letter to the court, Comiskey expressed her remorse to the Quinn family, her own family and to gardaí. She said she met Mr Quinn at a bus stop on O’Connell Street, Dublin when she was 18 and had loved him ever since.