Murderer who stabbed ex-partner 19 times in front of child fails to have conviction overturned
Appeal judge dismisses grounds of provocation
A MAN who murdered his former partner in a darkened archway by stabbing her 19 times in front of their child has failed in a bid to overturn his conviction.
In May 2021, a Central Criminal Court jury found Edmundas Dauksa guilty of murdering his former partner, whom he stabbed in front of their sixyear-old daughter, days after a court placed the child into the sole custody of her mother.
The 12 jurors rejected Dauksa’s defence that he had not been ‘fuelled with murderous intent’ when he attacked the mother of two in Co. Louth five years ago.
Dauksa, 53, with an address at Castletown Road in Dundalk, Co. Louth, had pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to the manslaughter of Ingrida Maciokaite, 31, at Bridgewater Mews, Linenhall Street, Dundalk, on September 18, 2018.
His defence had said the Lithuanian national became ‘a broken man’ when his daughter was
‘He felt wronged and wronged again’
‘taken’ from him by court order.
The court heard that an arrangement was made for Ms Maciokaite to bring the child to the accused’s house on September 18.
However, Ms Maciokaite then said she would not bring the child to the house, which upset Dauksa, and when he went to talk to her in the courtyard of her home that afternoon, he murdered her with a knife taken from his own home.
It was also the defence contention that the accused had felt ‘wronged and wronged again’, after the deceased got custody of the child in an ‘abnormal and accelerated’ district court hearing, days before the killing.
Returning judgement yesterday at the Court of Appeal, Judge Úna Ní Raifeartaigh said the deceased was entitled to decide not to bring the child to Dauksa’s home, as she had been awarded sole custody.
She said the court noted that Dauksa ‘armed himself with a knife’ and that it took ‘about 20 minutes’ for him to walk from his home to speak with the victim, which did not indicate a loss of self-control. The judge said the court would therefore refuse the grounds of provocation.
Judge Ní Raifeartaigh said that alcohol intoxication was not a significant part of the case in deciding whether or not Dauksa had the capacity to form the intent to commit the murder, and that it had not been pursued at the original trial.
‘Both grounds of appeal must fail and the conviction must be upheld,’ the judge said in dismissing the appeal.
At the Court of Appeal yesterday, Dauksa’s barrister John D Fitzgerald said Ms Maciokaite ‘volte face’ in deciding not to take their child to Dauksa’s home as promised had amounted to provocation. He argued that this defence should have been allowed to go before a jury but was blocked by trial judge Paul McDermott. Mr Fitzgerald said his client had spent the weekend taking sedatives and drinking to cope with the loss of custody of the child, who had lived with Dauksa and his wife for years, and that this could contribute to a loss of control.
On the day of the murder, Dauksa’s wife said that at around 2pm Ms Maciokaite had phoned to say she was no longer going to call over with their daughter, which had been a ‘provoking event’ for Dauksa.
Mr Fitzgerald said that the phone call was ‘the trigger’ and that, in law, it could reasonably amount to provocation, considering the background to the case, even though it was not ‘a classic case of provocation in a face-to-face manner’.
At the appeal hearing, the counsel for the State, Conor Devally, said a provocation defence requires an evidential basis to be put before a jury and that the judge’s role was to decide on the strength of that evidence.
Mr Devally said that the alleged provocation was actions ‘other than those of the deceased’.
Mr Devally said the deceased had been ‘extremely surprised’ by the events of the district court in granting her sole custody but
‘Was there a total loss of control?’
that, even then, she relented in agreeing for Dauksa to be allowed to see their daughter, even though there was a court order in place.
‘Is it an act of provocation that she cannot do something because of the court order?’ asked Mr Devally.
‘Was there a total loss of control?’ he asked.
Mr Devally said CCTV showed Dauksa and the deceased talking and walking freely towards the archway for several minutes before entering it.
‘Is it the case then that the entire conversation is somehow under the white heat of passion?’ asked Mr Devally, who noted that the knife was not visible in Dauksa’s hand on CCTV.