Aaron Connolly found guilty of murdering teenager Cameron Reilly

Mr Judge Tony Hunt thanked the jury for their hard work and told them they had put in a “very hard and long shift”.

“These are terribly difficult matters,” he added.

He exempted each of them from jury duty for a period of 15 years.

The jury deliberated for a total of 10 hours and 39 minutes.

Aaron Connolly, Willistown, Drumcar, had pleaded not guilty to the murder of Mr. Reilly, 18, at Shamrock Hill, Dunleer on May 26, 2018.

Dundalk IT student Cameron Reilly was out with friends in a field outside of town on the night of May 25, 2018.

Friends of Mr Reilly told the trial that a group of around 15 young people had gathered in the field during the night and alcohol and cannabis were being consumed. The group then went to a local diner just after midnight for food before setting off at 12:40 am.

The teenager’s body was found the next morning, May 26, 2018, by a man walking his dog.

State pathologist Linda Mulligan told the jury Mr Reilly’s cause of death was asphyxia from external pressure on the neck, with no other contributing factors.

At the trial, the court heard that in his first statement to Gardaí, Connolly said he and Mr Reilly went in different directions at the end of the night and after the two parted near the Beechwood housing development in Dunleer, he had “never looked back” to see the path Cameron took.

Last week, lawyers for Connolly, who denied murdering the 18-year-old in Shamrock Hill, Dunleer, told the court that the accused had oral sex with Mr Reilly on the night he was killed.

Defense attorney Michael Bowman SC has provided evidence by formal admission in court on behalf of Aaron Connolly.

He said that Aaron Connolly had oral sex with Cameron Reilly and when he left Mr. Reilly was still alive and stood up.

In his Garda interviews, Connolly said he couldn’t remember what he was doing during a “missing hour” the night Cameron Reilly died violently from taking a combination of drugs that rendered him unconscious.

He told Gardaí: “I know I didn’t kill him, I would know if I had killed someone.”

Connolly told investigators he had ingested two grams of cocaine and half a gram of MDMA.

The jury also heard that Connolly had initially denied that anything sexual had happened between him and Mr Reilly, and Gardaí said he was “heterosexual”.

Forensic scientist Dr. Clara Boland demonstrated that an immunological test on a penile swab from Mr Reilly revealed human saliva which was a mixture of two people, the main sample being that of Mr Reilly and the side sample being an incomplete profile mixed with Mr Connolly’s DNA agreed.

Friends of Mr Reilly said before the trial that the teenager had confided in them that he was bisexual shortly before his death.

The murder trial also heard evidence from Jack Conway, who said he and Aaron Connolly had had sexual relationships on several occasions as teenagers. He told the prosecutor that he and the defendant later had about 20 sexual encounters.

Mr Conway said Aaron Connolly would tell people he was straight.

In her testimony in court, senior state pathologist Dr. Linda Mulligan during an autopsy found evidence of external injuries to the neck in the form of abrasions and bruises, and there was also evidence of deep bruises around the neck and hyoid bone. “All of these features are consistent with the application of external pressure to the neck. That was the cause of death,” she said.

There were no obvious ligature marks or circular bruises, the pathologist told the court, and the injuries sustained were more akin to a chokehold or the application of a rough-surfaced tool to the neck.

In his closing statement to the jury, District Attorney Dean Kelly SC alleged that Aaron Connolly “lied from the beginning of this investigation to the end” about the murder of his friend.

He said the “continuous fox-like evolution” of the lies told by Mr Connolly belied the suggestion that a young person could lie to protect their personal sexual preferences.

Mr Kelly said that in a way this case is about lies and about science. He said lies are the subject of “grey areas” but the science tells the truth.

People lie for all sorts of reasons, Mr Kelly said, but science tells us certain things, and it tells us those things with absolute certainty.”

However, defense attorney Michael Bowman SC argued that several young people who were there on the night told “strategic lies”. He said people lied about drug and alcohol use in a murder trial because they were afraid.

Mr Bowman told the jury: “The law says that the mere fact that the accused is lying is not sufficient evidence. You can lie out of panic and confusion; they can lie because they are afraid for all sorts of reasons.”

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