A commercial diver tasked by the PSNI to try and find human remains in Co Tyrone reservoir told a jury today (Tuesday) how he located “half a person” in the water.
The diver was called to give evidence at Belfast Crown Court at a trial concerning the murder of 47-year old Cookstown man Damien Heagney.
Mr Heagney was last seen alive at the end of December 2021. He was reported missing in July 2022 and the following month his dismembered remains were located in Cappagh reservoir.
Stephen McCourt, 41, from Riverview in Augher, has been charged with, and has denied, murdering Mr Heagney on a date unknown between December 29, 2021 and January 7, 2022.
During the second day of the trial, the jury heard evidence from the diver who recovered two packages containing human remains from the reservoir on August 10, 2022. One package contained severed arms and a head whilst the other contained a pair of severed legs.
From the witness box, the commercial diver said that after being contacted by the PSNI, he and his team arrived at the reservoir at around 9am.
The diver said he was informed by police that he was looking for human remains in the water as well as car keys, a dog, weapons, a mattress and anything else “of interest”.
He said that after entering the water at around 10.20am in his diving gear, he began performing sweeping arcs as he stood on the riverbed.
When asked by Crown barrister Gary McHugh KC if he found anything during this, the diver said: “About ten minutes into my dive, an object hit my leg, I felt something hit my leg. I looked down and I could see a human foot, a pair of feet ... about ten to 15 feet down.”
Describing the visibility as “very bad”, the diver said there was a light on his helmet and that after looking down, he could see the object that had hit him was “wrapped in fence wire”.
He said he could then see thighs and determined the discovery was a body “cut in half, just up to the hips ... I realised it was half a person.”
The diver said he communicated his find to his supervisor who was on the bank and was advised to continue the arcs.
He was then asked if he observed anything else in the water and said that “almost straight away” he located another object “in the same sort of area”.
The diver said this second item was “a white bag also wrapped in the same fence wire” and described it having the “circumference of a football and about a meter long”.
The witness said he again alerted his supervisor and that both packages were retrieved from the water and placed in body bags. The jury heard that both items were then removed from the scene by an undertaker who drove the human remains to the morgue situated in the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast.
A Crime Scene Investigator from the PSNI who was also present at Cappagh reservoir on August 10, 2022 was called to give evidence.
She told the jury one of the items retrieved from the water was wrapped in a coal bag and the second was wrapped in an animal feed bag.
The officer confirmed she was present when the remains located the packages - one of which contained two severed arms and a head and the other severed legs - underwent a post mortem on August 11, 2022.
A second CSI who also attended the post mortem gave evidence at the trial and was asked about recovering fingerprints from the severed hands. The officer said that despite the “degraded” condition, he was able to obtain a print from the left thumb of the remains. This police witness told the jury he contacted the PSNI’s Fingerprint Bureau regarding an “urgent identification”.
When asked if anything else happened on August 11, he said: “At 18.20 I spoke to a fingerprint officer who confirmed that the left thumb was identified. The left thumb was identified to missing person Damien Heagney.”
In addition to these witnesses, the jury of seven men and five women heard evidence from a resident of Dromore who lives beside McGarland Terrace. It’s the Crown’s case that murder accused McCourt was living in Number 3 McGarland Terrace at the relevant time.
The local resident said that he didn’t know the name of the male occupant of Number 3 but knew him to see via “comings and goings”.
Describing the occupant as “small and stocky with a bald or shaven head”, the witness said this male had called at his house looking for a parcel that had been delivered.
Asked by Mr McHugh about a particular incident involving the occupant of Number 3, the witness recalled walking home one afternoon from the shops and seeing this male at his white van.
When asked what he saw that day, the witness said: “As I walked through the pedestrian entrance there was a van at the end ... the man who lived at Number 3 McGartland Terrace had the van doors open and as I walked past he was putting carpet into the back of the van.”
Mr McHugh then asked the witness if he noticed anything else and he replied: “I glanced down at the carpet on the ground and there was a big, dark stain on the carpet.”
Defence barrister Des Fahy KC then addressed the witness and said: “I suggest, clearly you are mistaken in the evidence that you have given about the man, the carpet and the van.”
Mr Fahy then revealed to the jury that on November 11, 2022 the witness went to Omagh police station for a digital identification procedure.
The witness was shown images of nine different males - one of whom was McCourt - and after viewing all the images twice, he could not make a positive identification of the male he saw putting the carpet into the white van.
At hearing
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