Renars Veigulis acquitted of murdering Rita Apine

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

Renars Veigulis was acquitted of murdering his partner, Rita Apine, by a Central Criminal Court jury. He had been charged with murdering her at their home in Freshford, Co Kilkenny, on or about 14 May 2017. The proceedings were reported on 30 November 2018.

Following the not guilty verdict, Justice Tara Burns told Veigulis he was free to go. The jury had deliberated for ten hours and 21 minutes.

Veigulis maintained that Apine had fallen down the stairs. He said he had been playing with his daughter when he heard a noise from the hall and found Apine at the bottom of the stairs with blood coming from her head.

Deputy State Pathologist Dr Linda Mulligan said Apine’s injuries were not consistent with a simple fall down the stairs. She said a fall could not be excluded as the cause of bruising to Apine’s forearms when considered alongside injuries to her legs. Defence barrister Michael Bowman SC suggested the fall could have been complex and asked the jury not to convict because the pathologist had not seen such injuries before.

Forensic scientist Dr Stephen Doak said blood staining on the stairs suggested an energetic event. Bowman said Veigulis’s account of moving Apine’s body and attempting resuscitation, combined with the fall, could explain the staining.

Bowman also challenged a claim that blood had been cleaned from a wall, saying no cleaning equipment was found and nobody arriving at the scene smelled detergent or noticed wet walls. Veigulis denied cleaning up in his garda interviews.