Young dad was brutally stabbed in front of kids

Half an hour into his trial at Galway Circuit Criminal Court last week, Eddie O’Loughlin (34), with addresses at 19 Finbarr’s Terrace, Bohermore, and 131 Cois na hAbhainn, Tuam, changed his plea to guilty to a single charge of aggravated burglary at a house in An Sean Bhaile, Doughiska, Galway, while armed with a knife, on June 20, 2016.

A jury of nine men and three women had been sworn in to hear evidence in the trial which was expected to last three days but they were discharged shortly after it had begun, after hearing damning evidence by the main prosecution witness, whose ex-partner had been stabbed by O’Loughlin.

Adrienne Keary said she had been a Council tenant at 61 An Sean Bhaile for the past 15 years or so and she lived there with her three children.

She said her ex-partner, Jonathan King, often stayed there, too, and he had been asleep in an upstairs bedroom on the morning in question.

Ms Keary said she got up around 7.25am and was getting her youngest daughter’s clothes ready for school when she heard the doorbell.

She looked out the window and saw a black Audi A4 parked outside.  She saw a man in the back seat with a hood covering his head.

She opened the front door and recognised Greg Hayes on the doorstep.

He asked her if Jonathan King was in the house and she called up the stairs to her ex-partner to come down.  She heard him get out of bed.

She left the front door slightly ajar and was about to walk into the sitting room, when she felt the door come in on top of her.  She turned and saw Eddie O’Loughlin coming in the front door.  He was carrying a knife.

King was halfway down the stairs at that stage and O’Loughlin went for him with the knife, she said.

Ms Keary said she froze, but she managed to hold back her youngest daughter who was standing behind her in the sitting room.

“Jonathan was stabbed a good few times – six to seven times maybe.

“He (O’Loughlin) was going at his ribs and then he got it in the face as well,” Ms Keary said to the jury.

In reply to Mr Fahy, she said her ex-partner knew his attacker.

“Jonathan was asking Eddie O’Loughlin what was going on,” she added.

Ms Keary said her eldest daughter had been upstairs before the incident began and she started pulling her father, Jonathan King, up the stairs away from O’Loughlin. Their other daughter was on the landing screaming.

She said that at one stage O’Loughlin fell back against a hall table, before he launched another attack on King, stabbing him again in the stomach area.

She said there was blood on King’s t-shirt, face and hands and there was blood on the walls, floor and stairs.

She ran out the front door and banged on her neighbour’s front window, screaming at someone to come out.  The couple living next-door and their children came out to her.

They were all standing at the front of the house when O’Loughlin came out.

“I saw Eddie O’Loughlin come out the front door.  He still had the knife in his hand.  There was blood on the knife.

“We were standing there and he put his finger to his lips towards us as he got into the black Audi.  Greg Hayes was driving and the other man was in the back seat with the hood.

“The car drove off,” she said.

She went back into the house and found King sitting in shock on the stairs.  He went to the bathroom to clean himself up and went into the neighbours next-door.

Ms Keary said her daughter dialled 999 and she spoke to the Gardaí and told them what had happened and identified O’Loughlin.

By the time Gardai arrived at the house, King had gone off with another man in a van.

Garda Pat Fahy told the jury he arrested O’Loughlin at a house in Lios an Uisce at 11.55am on the same day.

Following a brief recess, the trial resumed and O’Loughlin changed his plea to guilty.

Judge Rory McCabe then discharged the jury.

Barry White, SC, defending, asked the court to adjourn sentence to allow his client’s solicitor procure reports that might be of assistance.  He said his client also wished to be remanded in custody.

Judge McCabe remanded O’Loughlin in custody to appear back before the court again on June 7 for sentence.