Man (80) suffered multiple impacts to his face before fatal injury in fall, murder trial hears

An 80-year-old man suffered multiple impacts causing blunt trauma to his face before falling backwards and suffering fatal head injuries when he disturbed a burglar breaking into his garage in Co Tipperary, a murder trial has heard.

Timothy ‘Teddy’ Murnane suffered multiple external injuries including bruises and abrasions to his face, head, neck, chest, back, arms and legs a well as internal injuries fractures to his skull and bleeding on the brain following the confrontation with burglar Sean Harding at his home.

Harding (32) of Marian Terrace in Tipperary town, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Murnane, but guilty of manslaughter, at his home at St Michael’s Ave, Tipperary Town on September 12th 2025 as well as pleading guilty to three burglaries on the same day.

Murnane was discovered lying unresponsive outside his garage at his home around 9.30pm by his wife Margaret and he was later rushed by ambulance to University Hospital Limerick, but he never regained consciousness and died at the hospital at 9.45pm on September 14th 2025.

On Tuesday, State Pathologist Dr Heidi Okkers told how she carried out both external and internal examinations during her postmortem on Murnane on September 16th. She listed off the various bruises and abrasions she found externally and the haemorrhages and fractures she found internally.

She said she found bruising and abrasions to the scalp, bruising over both eyes and nose, bruising to the upper right eye lid, bruising to the left ear as well as to the neck, while she also found bruising to the upper arms, back of the forearms and hands which were consistent with defensive wounds.

Internally Okkers found a fracture at the back of the skull while she also found a haemorrhage and bleeds between the scalp and the skull and between the various layers of the brain. She found that Murnane’s facial structure was intact with no fractures of the cheekbones or nose.

She said that the injuries to Murnane’s face and front were blunt force trauma injuries consistent with multiple impacts from fists or some flat object while the injuries at the back of his head were consistent with an accelerated fall backwards against the ground.

Okkers concluded that Murnane’s death was due to complications arising from blunt force trauma to the head.

[ Man charged with murder of pensioner in Co Tipperary homeOpens in new window ]

Cross-examined by defence counsel, Dean Kelly, Okkers agreed that Murnane’s injuries could broadly be divided into those he suffered in the face and the front of the head including numerous bruises and those he suffered at the back of the head which included fractures and internal bleeds.

Kelly put it to Okkers that it was the latter group of injuries to the back of Murnane’s head that were to prove fatal and she agreed. She further agreed that the injuries that he suffered to his face and front of his head were survivable if he had not suffered the accelerated fall backwards.

Okkers agreed with Kelly when he put it to her that “all of the fractures to the back of the head and the side of the head were caused by the fall – that is, all of the fracture injuries and those fractures and the associated brain injuries caused Mr Murnane’s death.”

The jury of five men and seven women saw recordings of Harding being interviewed by Det Gardaí Conor Gleeson, Diarmuid Bourke and Kevin O’Keeffe. In one recording, they informed him that Murnane had died in hospital.

“Jesus Christ almighty, you’re joking me – Jesus Christ I’m after killing someone, I didn’t mean to kill anyone,” said Harding who vomited when he was told Murnane had died and became so upset that the detectives were unable to continue with the interview.

Earlier, Harding admitted to gardaí that he broke into Murnane’s garage to steal tools that he could sell to feed his drug habit and he admitted he got a fright when Murnane disturbed him. He insisted that he only pushed Murnane and knocked him to the ground, and said he never hit him.

“No, I just burst out past him, there was no scuffle or anything, I just pushed hard and that was it. He fell back and I went and jumped over the fence and legged it – I’m not sure how he fell, I think it was backwards – the injuries were to the back of his head, I suppose, but I’m not sure because I just burst past him.”

The case continues.