A chef has been found guilty of the murder of a father of three who was found dismembered on the grounds of a derelict house in Cork on 28 December 2019.
Ionut Cosmin Nicholescu, 30, who is a native of Romania but was living in Cork, had pleaded not guilty to the murder of Frankie Dunne.
Mr Dunne was found dead on the grounds of Castlegreine House in Cork on 28 December 2019.
His body was discovered by a man who was out looking for his missing cat.
A jury of eight women and four men at the Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork reached a unanimous guilty verdict after deliberating for seven hours and 52 minutes.
Mr Justice Paul McDermott thanked the jurors for their service in the trial, which got under way on 13 March.
He said that the jury had listened to evidence that was at times “traumatic in nature”.
The trial heard that Mr Dunne, 64, spent what was to be his last Christmas day with his family on the northside of Cork city, before he was found dead three days later in the garden of the period house on Boreenmanna Road in Cork.
The body of Mr Dunne was found by local man Joseph Pierce who had gone in to the garden of the period house looking for his missing cat.
Mr Pierce looked under a bush and spotted a body. He then raised the alarm.
When gardaà arrived at the scene he said that he might have been mistaken and that what he had seen could have been a mannequin or holy statue. However, it was the body of a man.
Gardaà subsequently found the head of the deceased in a refuse bag in the garden of the house. The arms of the late Mr Dunne were “draped over a branch on a tree”.
The two-storey period house, which dates back to the early 1890s was empty, as its owner had gone in to a nursing home.
Jurors were told that Mr Dunne was living in a support unit for persons living with addiction.
He had a chronic dependence on alcohol and was known to have a few drinks in the garden of Castlegreine House, as it was near the Cork Simon run unit where he was staying.
Nicholescu, who is from Branistea Village in Dambovita County, Romania was squatting in Castlegreine House.
The jury also heard evidence from State Pathologist Dr Heiki Okkers.
She said that a post-mortem investigation indicated that Mr Dunne had his head and arms removed after he was murdered.
A postmortem revealed that Mr Dunne died of neck compression associated with blunt force trauma to his head and face.
Dr Okkers said that Mr Dunne had sustained injuries to amongst other regions his chest, abdomen, ribs, sternum, head, arms, and back.
In the aftermath of the murder of Mr Dunne, gardaà carried out a search of the main attic and the small attic in the Silver Key restaurant where Nicholescu was employed.
Items of clothing were found in the small attic. The owner of the establishment Tony Campion said that he was not aware that anyone had ever stayed in the attic.
Gardaà had determined that Nicholescu had gone back to his native country in the aftermath of the murder having reported for work at the Silver Key restaurant and pub the day after the body of Mr Dunne was discovered.
On 30 December 2019 he boarded a bus to Belfast and then took flights to Edinburgh and onwards to Bucharest.
Nicholescu did not give any evidence in his case. However, he had told Romanian police who interviewed him in Bucharest that he had no involvement in the murder.
He claimed he was instead forced to bag the remains of Mr Dunne when he stumbled across two men on the grounds of Castlegreine House who had carried out the murder.
Two ‘phantom’ men
However, Ray Boland, SC for the Prosecution, in his closing speech to the jury said that whilst Nicholescu was undoubtedly a clever man his description of the two “phantom” men was “comically evil” and “straight out of central casting”.
“One is tall and one is small. One is large and one is light. One has a machete and one has a knife.”
Philipp Rahn, SC for the defence, had said that there was a clear lack of “any reason or motive” for the murder. There was no history or animosity between the two men.
Mr Rahn also said that there was “a very significant forensic problem” relating to an unidentified fingerprint on a bag containing the clothes of the deceased.
‘A character’
Meanwhile, the trial also heard that Frankie Dunne was a “character” who could have been “anybody’s father, brother or uncle”.
Mary O’Driscoll, a key support worker at Clanmornin House, said that Frankie was one of the “easiest people” to deal with at the facility.
Another staff member at the unit where Frankie was staying described him as having “got on with everyone”.
The native of Churchfield Avenue in the northside of Cork city had lived in the dry house for six months prior to his death.
Members of the Dunne family were present in court when the jury returned their verdict. They were visibly moved when the foreman said that the jury had found Nicholescu guilty of murder.
Man guilty over Frankie Dunne murder in Cork
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