A knife killer has been handed a life sentence after a jury convicted him of murder.
A Newry Crown Court jury deliberated for just over an hour before returning a unanimous guilty verdict that 30-year-old Daniel Carroll had murdered Brian Phelan on July 26 2018.
Addressing the defendant, Judge Gordon Kerr QC told him: “Daniel James Carroll you have been found guilty by the jury of murder. At law there is only one sentence I can pass and I therefore sentence you to life imprisonment.”
Thanking the jury for their time and dedication to the “taxing case,” the judge remanded Carroll, of Edward Street in Portadown, back into custody and said he would fix the minimum tariff the convicted killer must spend in jail before he is eligible to be released on licence in early November.
During the trial, the jury heard that for an unknown reason but possibly over a minor debt, Carroll stabbed Mr Phelan five times - three to the neck and two to his chest, at the top of the Carrivekeeney Road in Newry before leaving him to bleed to death in a nearby garden.
The men had gone to the rural road apparently to buy quad bikes but instead, Carroll attacked him and the jury saw CCTV footage of the stricken and bleeding victim trying to hide in the garden of a nearby house.
Carroll found him and “rifled” through his victim’s pockets to retrieve his phone before getting into Mr Phelan’s blue Peugeot and speeding off, leaving him to bleed to death.
As he lay fatally wounded, the jury heard how Mr Phelan called his girlfriend, asking her to come to him and repeatedly telling her “I’m dying” before calling 999 himself.
The distressing and harrowing 999 call was played to the jury and they heard him tell the operator “I’ve been stabbed, I’m dying, I’m dying,” telling the operator “my mate, my mate Dan” had been his attacker.
Carroll was arrested a short time later, telling the attesting sergeant “I didn’t do anything - I was in the town.”
The convicted killer, who the jury heard has previous convictions for assaulting a former partner and her dad and for kidnapping a woman off the street in Dundalk and assaulting her, remained silent throughout several hours of police interviews, answering only “no comment” to all of their questions.
It wasn’t until 15 months later that Carroll initially came up with his story of three men coming over the mountain, attacking Mr Phelan and threatening him before leaving the scene.