THE FAMILIES OF two men who went missing before their bodies were found on a lake island over a decade ago have told the trial of the woman accused of their murder about their last contact with the men.

The double murder trial heard today that Dublin drug dealer Eoin O’Connor was not himself, very quiet and not in the right frame of mind the week before he disappeared. 

Ruth Lawrence (45), who is originally from Clontarf in Dublin but with an address at Patricks Cottage, Ross, Mountnugent in Co Meath has pleaded not guilty to murdering Anthony Keegan (33) and Eoin O’Connor (32) at an unknown location within the State on a date between 22 April, 2014 and 26 May, 2014, both dates inclusive. 

Anthony Keegan and Eoin O'Connor.

On Tuesday, the jury was sent away until today, having been told that a significant witness in the case was “in a medical situation” and that all sides would need to consider whether the trial could continue in their absence.

However, when the panel came to court this morning Mr Justice Tony Hunt said the trial would not terminate prematurely and would be proceeding. 

Witness Karen Roche told Mr Michael O’Higgins SC, prosecuting, that Eoin O’Connor was her partner for over 11 years and they had two children together.

Roche said in the week leading up to his disappearance O’Connor wasn’t himself, was very quiet and not in the right frame of mind. 

“Were you aware in general terms what he was doing?” asked O’Higgins, to which the witness said she was. 

In his opening address, O’Higgins said the evidence will be that O’Connor was a drug dealer and sold drugs to Lawrence’s boyfriend Neville van der Westhuizen.

The jury has heard that van der Westhuizen owed O’Connor “a fairly considerable sum of money” in the region of €70,000. 

The witness said she was with O’Connor at 3.50pm on Tuesday, 22 April 2014 when he got a phone call which he “didn’t seem happy with”.

“He said he would have to go back down the country, I presumed Cavan as that was where he had been the day before,” she added. 

She said her partner left their house around 5.30pm on April 22 and she never saw him again. 

The next witness, O’Connor’s brother – Rory O’Connor – testified that he spoke to Eoin on the phone when he was at a local football match at around 7.30pm on 22 April, 2014.

The witness rang his brother’s phone when the game ended around 8.30pm but got no answer.

He later sent Eoin a few texts but again got no response. Rory O’Connor said this was unusual as Eoin would keep in contact with him. 

Asked by the prosecutor whether he knew Jason Symes, O’Connor said he knew Eoin was “doing business with him; selling him cannabis”.

The witness said he had “first heard about it” six months previous and understood that Symes and van der Westhuizen owed Eoin money. 

O’Connor said Eoin was under pressure for the money as he had to pay people above him.

He said Eoin and Keegan had gone to speak to Symes at his house in Ballyjamesduff in Co Cavan on Monday, 21 April and Eoin was told the money would be given to him the next day. 

The witness said he was “immediately worried” when he spoke to Eoin on Tuesday April 22 and was told where his brother was.

He said there was no response from Eoin to his texts and calls after 8.45pm that night.

Around 2am the witness said he drove to Symes house in Co Cavan to look for his brother but there was no one there. 

Around 11am the next morning the witness said he and his other brother Brian drove back to Symes’ house.

The witness was directed to Symes’ son’s house, where Brian O’Connor spoke to Symes on the phone.

He said Symes denied owing Eoin any money and said he hadn’t spoken to Eoin in six months. Symes later said he did owe something to Eoin but not in the region of €15K.

The witness said he made an official missing person’s report for Eoin at Santry Garda Station at 9.45pm on Wednesday, 23 April. 

In cross-examination, O’Connor agreed with Patrick Gageby SC, defending, that Eoin indicated to him that he had been dealing with Symes for a year and a half. 

Brian O’Connor said he was aware his brother Eoin sold cannabis and was told by him that a fella called “Jay” owed him €15K.

The witness said he last spoke to Eoin on the evening of 22 April and was told he had met “Jay” the previous day and “everything was sorted”.

“Eoin said he was told by Jay Symes to call back the following day and he would have half or some of the money,” explained the witness. 

The witness said he texted Eoin between 8.30pm and 9pm on 22 April and got a reply saying he was “OK” and was waiting on “somebody to turn up”.

When he texted Eoin at 9.45pm to say he was getting worried and asked was he OK, he got a response back saying “yeah”.

“My brother never spelt the word like that, he normally spelt it ‘yea’,” he explained, adding that Eoin’s phone had rung out after this. 

Margaret Keegan said her brother Anthony Keegan had been adopted and agreed she had said in her garda statement that he was “always a bit mad”.

She said Keegan had been in and out of trouble from a young age and that the adoption had affected him.

She agreed that Anthony occasionally abused drugs but was “clean” in the year leading up to this incident and was doing a rehabilitation course with Fr Peter McVerry.

Keegan said she spoke to Anthony on the phone after 6pm on 22 April and that he didn’t seem worried or scared.

She tried to ring him later that night but the “phone was dead each time”.

The witness met Rory O’Connor and was told that her brother and Eoin had gone to Cavan to collect €15K from Symes. 

She said Anthony looked up to Eoin and would do anything for him. “They were very good friends,” she said. 

The trial continues tomorrow before Mr Justice Hunt and a jury of four men and eight women. 

In his opening address, O’Higgins told the jury that the State would argue that Lawrence shot drug dealer O’Connor and worked “as a unit” with her boyfriend to kill him and Keegan, with their bodies later found “bound in rope, tape and covered in tarpaulin” by fishermen on Inchicup Island on 26 May, 2014.

Counsel for the State said the 12 jurors would hear evidence that the accused woman shot one of the two men but this was not immediately fatal and was “quickly followed up” by a shot from the defendant’s boyfriend, South African national Neville van der Westhuizen. 

The jurors were also told by O’Higgins it is the prosecution case that the accused woman and her boyfriend had “spoken openly” about “the murders and disposing of the bodies”.