‘Doctor’ beat aged brothers to death
Court hears accused claimed he would do ‘autopsies’
A MAN who pretended to be a doctor killed two elderly brothers in their home, hours after telling strangers in a pub he would carry out autopsies on any bodies found that night.
Alan Cawley also threatened to have one customer ‘committed’ with the help of the gardaí to prevent him killing his wife, his murder trial has heard.
Mr Cawley, 30, is charged with murdering Thomas and John (Jack) Blaine, who were found beaten to death four years ago.
Mr Cawley has admitted killing the brothers, both of whom had speech impediments and other illnesses. However, he has pleaded not guilty to murdering them on July 10, 2013, at New Antrim Street in Castlebar.
Michelle Nally told the Central Criminal Court that she was bar manager at The Irish House in the Co. Mayo town, but was off duty and socialising there on July 9. She said a couple she knew, Mick and Maureen Lacey, came into the bar. They were followed a short time later by a man she didn’t know.
‘He seemed to go straight over to them,’ she recalled. ‘At first, Maureen seemed to be okay but after a while I heard her saying: “Leave us alone”.’
She said she invited Mrs Lacey to join her and her friend, as she looked ‘very uncomfortable’.
‘He followed her over,’ she said. ‘He was saying Michael Lacey had health issues and he thought that Michael was going to kill Maureen that night. He said he wanted to ring the gardaí on him, that he was afraid for her.’
She said this man claimed to be studying to be a doctor and to have done four and a half years of his training.
‘He said he was working in the mortuary in Castlebar and that if her body, or any body, was found in the morning, he’d be doing the post mortems,’ she said. ‘I said they were very serious accusations and he had no right to be saying it,’ she continued.
‘He said he had the authority to do it because he was training to be a doctor.’
She said she asked him outside to speak to him and asked him his name.
‘He said he was Alan McDonagh from Cavan, his grandparents were part of the Traveller community but he was settled.’
She said she asked if he would mind her ringing the HSE in the morning to report him; he was drinking at 11pm, and would possibly be carrying out a postmortem at 6am. She was also going to mention the allegations. She said he became angry when she put her hand in her pocket, and asked if she was recording.
She said that she and her friend were also getting very uncomfortable by this point, and she told him he could finish his drink outside, but not to come back onto the premises.
‘He was talking slow but I could understand him,’ she explained. ‘I didn’t know what to think. At first I had no reason in the world to doubt him.’
She thought that he might have been on drugs. ‘I didn’t know if he was acting crazy,’ she added. ‘I was fearful.’
She said she’d had every intention of calling the HSE the next morning but, when she heard the news about the Blaine brothers, she called the gardaí instead.
Caroline Biggs SC, defending, put it to her that it had been a completely irrational allegation to make about Michael Lacey.
‘Yeah, it was crazy,’ she replied. ‘He didn’t know them.’
The jury also heard from barman John Ralph, who said he got to know Jack better than Tom during his nine years working in Rocky’s Bar, across the road from their home.
He had just returned to the pub after leaving a cup of tea on Jack’s windowsill, when he saw him with the accused on July 9.
‘I could hear him asking was he okay. This lad had his arm on Jack and Jack patted him.
‘I thought this lad was no hassle, bringing him across the road,’ he explained.
He said he’d seen the same man walking into the presbytery the day before, looking ‘shook’.
‘He looked as if there was something on his mind,’ he testified. ‘He stood out. I knew there was definitely something wrong, that he was going in to talk to a priest about something.’
The trial of Mr Cawley, who has an address at Four Winds, Corrinbla, Ballina, Co. Mayo, continues on Monday.
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Asked if she was recording him