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Updated 9.30pm
POST-MORTEMS HAVE been carried out on a father and his three-year-old son who were killed in a road crash in Limerick yesterday.
The examinations on the bodies of Marco Velocci and his son Alex James were carried out this evening by assistant State pathologist Dr Louise Mulligan at University Hospital Limerick.
The cause of their deaths is not likely to be known until after an inquest at the Limerick County Coroner’s Court.
Before the crash, gardaí were alerted to a house in Oola, Co Limerick where they discovered local woman Jodie Power who had received stab wounds.
Power told officers that her ex-partner Velocci had taken their son from the house in a black 2005-registered Audi car.
Velocci and his son died when the car they were travelling in collided with a truck at around 8.30am at Brooks Bridge, on the Limerick to Tipperary stretch of the N24, between Pallasgreen and Oola.
The boy and his father were killed instantly in the collision.
The deceased man is originally from Oola but had been living in Lattin, Co Tipperary.
It’s understood he and his son’s mother had been going through a legal separation.
The boy and his father were “pronounced dead at the scene”, gardaí said.
The boy was found lying on the road at the crash site while Velocci was found inside the car. The truck was discovered in the field.
Sources said Gardai had not yet interviewed Jodie Power, the mother of the deceased toddler and ex partner of Mr Velocci.
The 26-year old mother of two suffered stab wounds during a domestic incident with Mr Velocci, who then fled her home with their son.
“Tragedy”
Local Fianna Fáil councillor Noel Gleeson told TheJournal.ie this morning that the community was in shock following the incident.
“It’s very sad, and for the boy to be killed is such a tragedy,” said Gleeson.
These tragedies happen everyday and there’s no answer to them.
“For the truck driver too, he wasn’t expecting it and it’s very sad.”
The truck driver was not injured in the incident but was being treated yesterday “for shock”, gardaí said.
Gleeson said that Velotti had been involved in local activities in the area and was known well.
“My sympathies are with the family, it’s such an awful tragedy,” he said.
“A great neighbour”
Jodie Power’s parents, Elizabeth and Perry, from Oola, were yesterday being comforted by family and friends.
The young mother, who has an 18-month-old baby from a separate relationship has two brothers, James and Perry Jnr.
Her brother James, who lives in Australia was “on a plane home”, a neighbour said yesterday.
They described her as a “lovely lady, a great mother, and a great neighbour.”
Marco Velocci, who was a member of the Emly Lattin Cullen Oola (ELCO) gun club, was originally from Oola, but had been living in Lattin, Co Tipperary.
Paying tribute, his best friend Jonathan Ryan said: “He was a great man for gun dogs, fishing, hunting sports – they were our sports.”
He was fierce into his wildlife. He was even on the newspaper a year or two ago after he found a young baby hare. He bottle-fed him and nursed him back to life. He reared him for a few months and left him off again.
There was no update on the investigation from gardaí this morning. A post-mortem is due to be carried out today on the bodies.
Gardaí at Bruff have appealed for witnesses to the collision and anyone who travelled on the road between 8am and 8.30am today to contact them at 061 382940.
- First published 09.10am
-With reporting from David Raleigh
So your guaranteed remission regardless of behavior inside ? That’s absolutely ridiculous. Remission should be used in extreme circumstances where a prisoner has really showed signs of turning their life around. What’s the point in a criminal been good when there is no punishment.
I think between suspended sentences, serious sentences been run concurrently and light sentences its clear there is not enough space in prisons.
Time for a new one demolish the Dublin ones, sell the lands for housing and fund a new super max in the middle of nowhere and send them all there.
@Lie Smeller: The land around Mountjoy would be worth a fortune, turn the main building into a new hotel and the grounds can be used for apartment blocks… the price of the sale would cover a new prison in the midlands somewhere..
@Dotty Dunleary: a new hotel? Sher there’s already a hotel on that land
@Dotty Dunleary: I think that the main building is already a hotel.
Not surprising really. The whole criminal justice system in this country is broken. Criminals constantly being re-released to inflict more pain amd suffering on society, so why would they worry about attacking prisoner officers. There is no real deterrent.
@kevin: We need at least one really tough prison like Alcatraz for the incorrigibles. It needs to be under the control of “The Dept. of Defence” and well beyond the influence of the Bleeding hearts P.C brigade!!
Utterly outdated and inadequate facility, not enough room to segregate and separate Ireland’s most Unwanted!
The Prison officers in that place aren’t paid enough by half to deal with the worst of society!
Send in the Army!
Stats, lies, stats, lies? It’s how ya tell em.
It makes me smile. the people who take these well paid jobs and then complain.
@Sean Conway: so you think that if someone is“well paid “ by your standards it is ok to be assaulted or seriously injured?
@Sean Conway: Why don’t you take one of these ‘well paid jobs’ ?we’ll see how long it will take before that smile is wiped off your face when reality bites.
@Sean Conway: starting salary is very low until you move up the scale if you do and can you stick it.
@Sean Conway: I’m sure that smile would be on the other side of your face if you were to take up work in the prison service.
@Sean Conway:
Can we take then assume nurses, ambulance crew, fire fighters, children detention staff, bus drivers, taxi drivers and everyone else who works frontline with the public should put up and shut up too?
Unbelievable!
@Sean Conway: if that makes you smile then you’re one sick puppy
@Sean Conway: As somebody with family and friends who work there you’d be a lot better doing some research before making comments like that.
If you think its that good the prison service is recruiting at the moment , could be your big chance to make your fortune.
@Ray Farrell: Who’s making them do it? the same goes for joining the army.
@Sean Conway: Prison Staff know there are risks involved in doing the Job. But those risks should be minimised as much as possible. And keeping an accurate record of All incidents where violence has been used against staff is part and parcel of that process.
It is the Prison Officers on the floor that are the ones have to place their own safety at risk to protect others.
And it is the Job of those in charge to enable the staff to work in an environment where there is zero tolerance to Any act of violence towards them.
@Honeybee: I am afraid that is not only reality that bites but also some inmates who are still out early because of ” good” behaviour.
@Sean Conway: it makes me smile, when idiots miss the point…
@Ray Farrell: The same thing that makes you do your job, that is if you have one. And if you do I hope your not going into a job every day where your putting yourself in danger. Just be glad that you can sleep nice and cosy in your bed at night deep in the knowledge that there are men in women in this country putting their personal safety at risk so you can stay like that.
@Sean Conway: well paid? I wouldn’t lift a finger for that kind of money. Completely underpaid dangerous job should be paid double, especially for the people in the front line, the pencil pushers not so much though!
Anyway, ludicrous statement Sean!
I worked as a corrections officer in North America for a while. I never had a problem. If you act the bol**ks and don’t treat inmates with simple respect and dignity, if you throw your weight around simply because you can, if you act like you’re something special because you wear uniform instead, then you will end up getting a hammering. I never read a prisoner’s file or asked why they lost their liberty and made no secret of the fact. I just treated the guys how I like to be treated. That’s not to say if they were breaking the rules that I wouldn’t deal with them. They recognised that and I was always fair and straight with them. I had more problems with chronic staff than I ever had with any inmate.
@Niall Sheridan: The difference between the US System and ours in how those involved in violence towards staff are treated. Assault an officer over there and you are likely to get pepper sprayed at a minimum, tazed or in extreme cases shot. The Irish Prison System has no such protocols.
@Greg Mumble: Because in Ireland Pepper Spray and Tazers are considered as Firearms under the Law and Prison staff have not been issued with either. Even the issue of Asp Batons are only issued to Staff on external duties such as Prisoner escorts, they are not currently issued to Staff on internal duties.
@Greg Mumble: They are not allowed the use of tazers in prisons here in case you tazer somebody and its triggers a reaction to their heart. That would be terrible.
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