Amadea McDermott murder trial: Partner claimed she stabbed herself
Martin Hayes told paramedics Amadea McDermott stabbed herself during a row at their Coolock flat. Prosecutors told the Central Criminal Court the claim was "the seed" of an absolute lie.
'She knew the storm was coming': Key evidence in the Amadea McDermott murder trial
Amadea McDermott had wanted to live. That is what State prosecutors told a Central Criminal Court jury as the murder trial of her partner Martin Hayes got under way, dublinlive.ie reports.
On July 20, 2017, paramedics arrived at the couple's apartment in Rathvale Drive, Coolock, to find Amadea lying on her back, taking the short, shallow breaths of someone close to death. A single stab wound to the right of her abdomen had caused significant internal bleeding. A knife had been placed on a table nearby.
Hayes, who flagged the ambulance down outside dressed only in a white vest and Y-front underpants, was in an agitated state. He told paramedics — and had earlier told a 112 operator — that Amadea had threatened to take her own life and had stabbed herself.
Senior Counsel Sean Gillane, prosecuting, described that account to the jury as "the seed" of an absolute lie that took six years to unravel. "On that evening, as the clock ticked towards her death, closer and closer to the point to which the injury was inflicted, you will see the banal, almost beautiful ordinariness of someone at home," Gillane said. "She wasn't someone who wanted death, she feared death."
A week before her death
Seven days before Amadea died, she and her sister Euphrasia booked an appointment for a spray tan at a local salon ahead of a family christening. When beauty therapist Dawn Teelan saw Amadea undress inside the spray tent, she was shocked. The bruising covering Amadea's body was so extensive that Teelan's first thought was that she had been in a car crash.
Teelan told the court she would ordinarily never comment on a client's appearance, but on seeing the injuries she said, without thinking: "What happened to you?" She noted old, yellowing bruises across Amadea's chest and extensive fresh bruising on both her upper and lower back. Amadea said her young son had been jumping on her. Teelan said she could not accept that a four-year-old child was responsible for injuries of that severity.
When Euphrasia took her turn in the spray tent, Teelan asked whether Amadea was all right. Euphrasia rolled her eyes and told the therapist: "We are not quite sure what is going on."
That same day, Amadea had arranged for her childhood friend Jane Deacon to do her makeup for the christening. Deacon found her quieter than usual. When she began applying makeup, she noticed Amadea had a black eye. Amadea told her she was in a "toxic relationship" with Hayes. Upset and crying, Amadea said she wished Hayes would leave but also said she loved him. Deacon told the court she was shocked — she had not known her friend was going through such an ordeal.
The night of July 20
Hayes rang emergency services three times in the early hours of July 20. He also rang Amadea's sister Euphrasia, who was at home asleep.
When paramedic Keith Markey entered the apartment he found Amadea on the floor in the doorframe between the living room and kitchen. When no pulse could be found, compressions were performed. The stab wound to the abdomen was noted and dressed.
Garda Jason Flynn brought Hayes into a bedroom and asked what had happened. Hayes said he and Amadea had drunk vodka and taken around three grams of cocaine. He told officers that once the cocaine ran out, Amadea became agitated and an argument followed. Hayes said he went to a bedroom to remove himself from the row. He told Gda Flynn that Amadea then came into the bedroom holding a knife, saying she was going to kill herself, and that this was not the first time she had made such a threat — and that he had not believed she would act on it.
Hayes told gardaí he heard a sound a few minutes later and found Amadea in the living area with a puncture wound to her abdomen. He called 999 and, on the operator's instructions, pressed a towel to the wound. Gda Flynn said Hayes was visibly intoxicated and still under the influence of alcohol and cocaine at the time.
Family's reaction
Euphrasia received a call from Hayes saying: "It's Amadea, you better come, it's a cardiac arrest." She alerted family members, including her sister Eucharia McDermott, who was woken by Euphrasia shouting from downstairs. Still in her pyjamas, Eucharia ran up the road to the apartment and jumped into Euphrasia's moving car along the way before leaping out as it pulled up outside.
She burst into the apartment shouting "where is she, where is she". The flat was in a mess, with glass and clothes strewn across the floor. Hayes was sitting on a bed.
Amadea's mother told the trial she would never accept that her daughter had taken her own life. "I will not accept that, never," she said. When Euphrasia was asked by the defence whether Amadea had seemed depressed in the week before her death, she said Amadea had been making plans for the future. "No sign of anything like that," she said.
The family statement was read outside the court by Eucharia McDermott, flanked by her sisters Olivia Heffernan and brother Zack McDermott.
Source: Google News IE — Crime (en)