Marta Herda murder trial hears birthday video evidence

This report is a localnews.ie summary based on public court reporting and records; sources are listed below.

Marta Herda is charged with murdering Csaba Orsos at South Quay, Arklow, on 26 March 2013. She has pleaded not guilty. The proceedings were reported on 13 July 2016.

On 13 July 2016, the seventh day of the trial, the Central Criminal Court jury saw a video of Ms Herda at Mr Orsos’s birthday celebration in 2012. The report described the allegation that she murdered him by driving him into a harbour, where he drowned.

Ms Herda told gardaí that Mr Orsos had been in love with her but she did not feel the same way. She said it was “24 hours a day” and she could not take it anymore when she drove to the harbour that morning.

His brother, Zoltan Sandor, testified that Mr Orsos’s birthday was 24 July and the family had celebrated it at his home around that time in 2012. The video showed Ms Herda sitting beside him. Mr Sandor agreed with the defence that he could be heard telling her she was the present, or something similar. Asked whether she replied that she had come to warn Mr Orsos that his manager knew he had lied when calling in sick, he could not be sure what she had said because of his English.

Former colleague Martin Penn gave evidence that Ms Herda pointed to the bride’s and groom’s seats at a wedding and told Mr Orsos: “This will be us one day.” Under defence cross-examination, he accepted that Mr Orsos could have used the line many times. Defence counsel Giollaíosa Ó Lideadha SC said Ms Herda accepted saying it, but lightheartedly, because Mr Orsos had said it to her on many occasions.

The trial was continuing before Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy and a jury of eight men and four women.