{"id":392021,"date":"2026-03-18T20:45:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T20:45:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/392021\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T20:45:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T20:45:10","slug":"unfortunate-situation-leads-to-discharge-of-jury-in-murder-trial-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/392021\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Unfortunate situation\u2019 leads to discharge of jury in murder trial \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">An \u201cunfortunate situation\u201d has led to the discharge of a jury in the trial of a man accused of murdering his friend in circumstances of \u201calmost indescribable savagery\u201d. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Liam O\u2019Leary (33) pleaded not guilty to the murder of 58-year-old John Casserly at a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/peter-mcverry-trust\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/peter-mcverry-trust\/\">Peter McVerry Trust<\/a> housing unit on Tone Street, Ballina, Co <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/mayo\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/mayo\/\">Mayo<\/a> between October 23th and 24th, 2024. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">O\u2019Leary\u2019s trial began at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/central-criminal-court\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/central-criminal-court\/\">Central Criminal Court<\/a> eight days ago and it had been expected that the prosecution would complete its evidence this week.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">However, Judge Melanie Greally on Wednesday told the jury that due to an \u201cunfortunate situation\u201d, the trial cannot continue. She thanked them for doing their civic duty by agreeing to sit in what she said has been \u201ca deeply disturbing and unpleasant trial\u201d. She excused the jurors from further service for five years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The case will be mentioned before the court on April 15th. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Opening the trial on March 10th, prosecuting counsel  Dean Kelly told the jury the alarm was raised when O\u2019Leary and Casserly entered a neighbour\u2019s apartment in Tone House, causing the occupants to flee downstairs. When garda\u00ed breached the door of the apartment, they found Casserly lying naked on the ground with O\u2019Leary standing over him, clothed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Kelly said  Casserly died in circumstances of \u201calmost indescribable savagery\u201d, having been stabbed 27 times. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An \u201cunfortunate situation\u201d has led to the discharge of a jury in the trial of a man accused&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":156182,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,65264,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,2354,5,63909,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-392021","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-central-criminal-court","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-latest-news","18":"tag-latestnews","19":"tag-main-news","20":"tag-mainnews","21":"tag-mayo","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-peter-mcverry-trust","24":"tag-top-stories","25":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116252136315695063","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=392021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392021\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=392021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=392021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=392021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}