A document found on a hard drive owned by Graham Dwyer described in graphic and violent detail how the author would rape and murder American woman Darci Day, the Central Criminal Court has heard.
“Killing Darci” was discovered on the hard drive by Det Garda Bríd Wallace and was created on March 2nd, 2011.
The court had heard Ms Day, from Maine, had communicated with Mr Dwyer over the internet in 2010 and 2011, though they never actually met.
Mr Dwyer (42), an architect from Kerrymount Close in Foxrock, is charged with murdering childcare worker Elaine O’Hara (36) on August 22nd, 2012.
He has pleaded not guilty.
Ms O’ Hara’s remains were found in forestry on Kilakee Mountain, Rathfarnham, on September 13th, 2013.
Sean Guerin SC, for the prosecution, read the document into the record and Det Garda Wallace agreed it was the document she found on the computer.
It described how the author knew “from the first email” that she was “special”. He said he had always fantasised about killing since he was a teenager.
When he had his knife in his hand, he was wielding power and “knowing I could decide who lived and died, just like my hero God”.
Addiction grew
He said he wondered what opening a throat would feel like. His addiction grew to “bondage, rape, slashing and stabbing” and he acquired “two fine subs [submissives] over the years”.
The author said he was lucky because there were 100 men looking for every one “sub” available, but he always managed to win them over because he knew what to say.
He said the scenarios grew and grew, and he could not satisfy his blood lust. Then one of his subs came to him and asked for help to die.
“The decision would be hers unless I took the power away from her,” the author said.
He said they discussed it but there were “too many loose ends”, including how their phones might be in the same place.
“But then I knew it was in me to do it,” the author said. He said he considered “taking a stranger” and “taking a life in exchange for an orgasm”, making a “video clip I could watch into old age”.
“Having been responsible for creating three lives, wasn’t I entitled to take just one?”
The author said he considered finding someone who was suicidal or terminally ill, someone who needed the courage to die that he could provide. He said there were 400 or 500 suicides in “this small country” and insurance companies didn’t pay out for suicide.
“Why not be a random murder victim?”
The author wrote when Darci first came into his life, he knew her as Cassie, and when he found out why it made him fall in love with her even more. She was beautiful and young and smart and “critically, she wanted to die in the same way as I wanted to kill – a rare marriage”.
Dollars posted
The author said they shared images and details of how she would “die by my hand”. He said he posted her a few dollars here and there to pay debts and tie up the loose ends.
“I was happy to give her this relief and the best was yet to come,” the author said.
She had enough money to get a bus to Boston and a ticket to Dublin. She knew her death would cause some pain to her parents but “that would fade with time”.
He said he met her at the airport and she wore a silver chain he had sent her which would soon be his again when he “removed it from her ruined throat”.
“Underneath she wore undergarments that would soon be soaked in blood,” he said.
The author said she gave him a “huge thank you hug”, she was so grateful for what he was about to do. As they drove to a cabin they didn’t say much.
“It was like watching a movie we’d written and directed,” he said.
The author said when they got to the cabin they had a meal and she tasted food that would never leave her. They were nervous and excited and he gave her every opportunity to turn around. Then he wiped their contacts from his computer and she posted her suicide video.
He was planning on taking her clothes to a popular suicide cliff the next day. It was dark by that stage, the author said, and she put on her “carefully chosen play list”. He carefully undressed. She did not need to see the shovel and the bags of lime he brought, he said. She knew the camera was on them. Then they “made love” and she cried.
After this, the author said he put on gloves and a mask and grabbed her arms roughly and tied her to a mattress on the ground.
“She knew he was watching and waiting to take her home to her grandmother and her dog,” he said.
“I knew she would look after me after I killed her.”
Violent rape
The author then described the violent rape of the young woman and how he “sank the knife deep into her belly” and stabbed her “again and again” and how he “slit her throat from ear to ear”. He described the condition of her body and how he fell asleep for a time.
He also described removing the silver necklace from her and keeping it in a safe place with the chip from the camera. The author said he then took his last photographs, and carried her body to the bathroom and washed her.
“She would have been proud of me,” he said.
The author said he then put her on the mattress, covered her in lime and rolled her in the mattress and plastic. He put her body in the car and made the short drive to the place where he had prepared her grave and “where I would pray for her and ask forgiveness for what I had done”.
Throughout Mr Guerin’s reading of the document, Mr Dwyer sat bent over in the box, with his hands on his face.
The court had been cleared of spectators for the reading and Mr Justice Tony Hunt had warned the jury of what was to come. He reminded them of the "squeamishness warning" they were given at the outset of the trial.
“It is only fair to advise you some of what you will hear falls into that category,” he said.
The trial continues.
