Man killed in Phoenix Park 'died from catastrophic head injuries'
A trial has heard a homeless man died from catastrophic head injuries before being set on fire in the Phoenix Park in Dublin.
Ciaran Moran (aged 29) with an address at Camden Street denies murdering Gerard Donnelly in November 2013.
Garda Peter Murtagh said he thought it was a mannequin when he first came across the burning body of Gerard Donnelly in the Phoenix Park.
He was on patrol with a colleague after midnight on November 29, 2013 when they saw a small fire in a fenced-off wooded area near the Wellington monument.
State Pathologist Professor Marie Cassidy later carried out the post mortem on the badly burnt body.
She concluded he had died from catastrophic head injuries suggesting multiple blows from a relatively heavy object – possibly a lump hammer found at the scene.
Her evidence was that Gerard Donnelly was already dead when set alight and when a toe was amputated.
It is the prosecution's case that Gerard Donnelly was homeless, but had €140,000 in an EBS account and that the accused Ciaran Moran killed him, knowing that he was a man of some means.
