Advertisement

We need your help now

Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.

You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.

If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.

PA Archive/PA Images
kenneth o'brien

'I was half-expecting him to wake up': Court hears how man dismembered friend's body with chainsaw

The Central Criminal Court heard evidence by Paul Wells Snr in his trial for the murder of Kenneth O’Brien.

A DUBLIN MAN who shot his friend in the back of his head and used a chainsaw to dismember his body described the scene as “pure f***ing carnage” to gardaí.

The Central Criminal Court heard evidence this morning in the murder trial of Paul Wells Snr.

The jury was watching a DVD of one of his garda interviews following his arrest on suspicion of murdering Kenneth O’Brien.

The 50 year-old of Barnamore Park in Finglas has admitted shooting dead his fellow Dubliner and dismembering his body.

However, the father-of-five has pleaded not guilty to murdering the 33 year-old at his home in Barnamore Park on 15 or 16 January, 2016.

He claims that the deceased had wanted him to murder O’Brien’s partner, so that he could take their child back to Australia where he had previously lived.

Head spinning

The jury began watching DVDs of his interviews earlier this week.

He told gardaí that he shot the deceased in the back of the head during a scuffle over O’Brien’s alleged request, along with another request to make it look like “sexual abuse”.

The jurors heard this morning what he told gardai about the aftermath of the shooting, when he realised he couldn’t lift O’Brien’s body from where it lay in his garden shed.

“I was frightened of being discovered,” he said.

“There was an orange-handled chainsaw. I don’t know what I was thinking. My head was spinning.”

He said that time was against him.

“The hard part for me was that it belonged to Ken,” he said, explaining that he had borrowed it a year or two earlier.

“There wouldn’t be very much room in the shed,” he said. “So, I knew I couldn’t do it in the shed, if was going to do it at all. I pulled him outside, having taken all his clothes off.”

Six attempts

Wells said he dragged him to the end of the garden.

“Ken was too low down for anybody to see. He was too close to the walls,” he explained.

He said that it must have taken him 20 minutes to get the saw started.

“Eventually, I got it started,” he continued. “I never thought I’d do that to a human being, my friend. I just had an overwhelming sense of trying to survive.

“I must have f***in made about six attempts to f***in try and do it. I kept bottling. I was half expecting him to wake up.”

He said that he then picked up O’Brien’s head, arms and legs and put them in plastic bags.

That left just the torso, he said, describing how he rolled it onto a sheet of plastic.

“When you’re there you’re in a f***in nightmare. It’s f***in real,” he said.

“Just f***ing carnage, f***in pure carnage. All I could do is ask him to forgive me.”

The trial continues.

Comments have been closed for legal reasons.