Intended target lived four doors away, Geoghegan murder trial told
The Shane Geoghegan murder trial has today heard that the apparent intended target lived four doors away from the rugby player on the night he was shot, in a case of mistaken identity.
The 28-year-old Garryowen captain was shot on November 9, 2008 near his home at Clonmore, Kilteragh, Dooradoyle in Limerick.
Barry Doyle (aged 26), a father-of-three from Portland Row, Dublin, has pleaded not guilty to his murder at his Central Criminal Court trial.
Garda Daniel Murphy of Roxboro Road Garda Station today told the jury that he knew a man called John McNamara, known locally as Johnny Mac.
He said he was aware that this Mr McNamara lived "four doors up from Shane Geoghegan" at the time of Mr Geoghegan’s murder and had done so since 2006.
He pointed out Mr McNamara’s house on photographs and maps for the jury, which heard from a previous witness that John McNamara was the intended target that night.
April Collins testified last week that the night before the murder she heard John Dundon tell Barry Doyle to shoot Mr McNamara.
“John Dundon was saying he’d everything sussed out about John McNamara and that it was time to make the move,” she said.
“I’ve the gun and car ready and everything ready to go,” John Dundon said, she testified.
She said that John Dundon explained to Barry Doyle what John McNamara looked like.
“The gun is there. You kill him,” he told Barry Doyle, she said.
She said she later met John Dundon and Barry Doyle.
“John was saying John McNamara was dead,” she said.
John Dundon then spoke to someone on the phone, she continued.
“Then he asked Barry Doyle to describe the man he killed and Barry described him. He said he was big, the way John described him,” she said.
Gda Murphy yesterday agreed with Tom O’Connell SC, prosecuting, that Barry Doyle was in the company of John Dundon in Limerick on the afternoon of October 29, 2008.
He agreed that Barry Doyle was also seen with John Dundon in a car in Limerick on two other dates that October.
Mr O’Connell pointed out that this information was accepted by the defence.
The trial continues tomorrow morning before Mr Justice Garrett Sheehan and a jury of eight men and three women.
