A jury at the Central Criminal Court has found Simon McGinley, aged 30 of Connaughton Road Car Park in Sligo, guilty of the murder of Eugene Gillespie, a 67-year-old retired telecoms broker. McGinley had initially denied the murder charge but admitted manslaughter, a plea the State rejected. He pleaded guilty to false imprisonment and burglary at Mr Gillespie's Old Market Street home on 19 September 2012. Mr Gillespie was discovered tied up in his hallway two days after the assault and died in hospital following cardiac arrest. The jury, after five hours of deliberation, returned a unanimous guilty verdict on 3 April 2014. Mr Justice Garrett Sheehan imposed a life sentence, backdated to 29 September 2012, with concurrent sentences of ten years for false imprisonment and seven years for burglary. A victim impact statement highlighted the family's trauma and called for enhanced resources for An Garda Síochána to protect vulnerable people.
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Original report plus public source leads and related archive reports used for review context.
Public source leads
- Sligo man sentenced to life for murder - The Irish Times The Irish Times · Fri, 04 Apr 2014 07:00:00 GMT
- Man gets life for Sligo pensioner's murder - RTE.ie RTE.ie · Thu, 03 Apr 2014 07:00:00 GMT
- Man on trial over murder of Sligo man Eugene Gillespie - RTE.ie RTE.ie · Tue, 25 Mar 2014 07:00:00 GMT
- Man jailed for life for murder of Sligo pensioner Eugene Gillespie - Newstalk Newstalk · Thu, 03 Apr 2014 07:00:00 GMT
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