The Court of Appeal has dismissed Aurimas Andruska’s appeal against two murder convictions and upheld the convictions.
Andruska was convicted on 6 November 2014 in the Central Criminal Court, sitting in Tralee. The appeal concerned a double murder in Killorglin between 15 and 17 June 2013, in which a mother and her eight-year-old daughter were killed. The appeal judgment was delivered ex tempore on 30 January 2017 by Mr Justice Birmingham, with Justices Mahon and Edwards also on the court.
The prosecution case was based mainly on circumstantial evidence. It included a bloody mark on a wall at the house that contained the adult victim’s DNA and fingerprint ridge detail. At trial, a garda fingerprint examiner said the ridge detail matched Andruska’s left little finger. DNA from a lift taken from the child’s top matched Andruska, and footwear impressions in blood were said to match a type of shoe seen in CCTV stills of him. The shoes themselves were not found. The prosecution also relied on statements in which Andruska gave differing accounts of visits to the house before the killings.
A central appeal issue was whether Andruska had freely provided fingerprints and a DNA sample at Killorglin Garda station on 19 June 2013. The defence argued gardaí had not adequately explained that he was under no obligation to provide them or that they could be used as evidence. Gardaí said they had made this clear. After hearing evidence from two officers and Andruska in a trial-within-a-trial, the trial judge found that he understood he had a free choice.
The Court of Appeal said it could not overturn those findings, given the trial judge’s opportunity to see and hear the witnesses, and that there was abundant evidence to support them. Andruska argued that his later arrest and the further samples taken on 27 June flowed from the earlier events and were tainted by them. The judgment records that challenge but does not set out a separate ruling on it; the court rejected the argued grounds overall.
The appeal also challenged evidence from the fingerprint examiner describing a hand pressing against the wall while moving upstairs. The court was not persuaded that the evidence exceeded the expert’s proper role, saying the comments could have been made by anyone studying the photograph. It rejected each argued ground and dismissed the appeal, leaving the convictions upheld.