Barefield man Joe Heffernan has been found guilty of the murder of Ennis student Eoin Ryan.
The jury at the Central Criminal Court in Dublin returned a majority verdict in their third day of deliberations, meaning the 33 year old farmer from Cappabeg will now serve a life sentence for killing the 21 year old student.
Eoin Ryan’s badly beaten body was found on the Heffernan farm at Cappabeg Barefield on June 7th2011, – he’d been on a night out with friends in Cruise’s pub the previous night where he met Joe Heffernan and it’s understood they left the pub in taxi together.
This trial before the Central Criminal Court that 33 year old Heffernan rang Gardaí admitting he had kill a man, his defence argued that he had been suffering from a mental disorder at the time, while the prosecution said he had killed Eoin Ryan because he was gay.
After 6 hours of deliberation the jury of seven women and five men returned an 11 to 1 majority verdict finding Joe Heffernan guilty of murder.
He’ll serve the mandatory life sentence for that crime, while the family of popular law graduate Eoin Ryan from Newhall, continue to mourn his loss
In a victim impact statement Mr Ryan’s brother Daniel described Eoin was the cherished baby of the family.
He said: "No human being deserves to die the lonely, terrifying and violent death, least of all someone as peaceful and gentle as our Eoin, adding that their Ryan family’s world ended on June 7th 2011. – and they’ll never come to terms with the savagery that brutally ended his life and destroyed so many others.
