LAST UPDATE | 11 Nov 2022

A 16-YEAR-OLD boy who stabbed Urantsetseg Tserendorj as she walked home from work in Dublin’s city centre has been found guilty of her murder following a retrial at the Central Criminal Court.

A reduced jury panel of six men and five women returned a 10-1 majority verdict at the Central Criminal Court this afternoon on what was their fourth day of deliberations in the case.

The accused, who was 14 at the time of the offence and cannot be named because he is a minor, had denied the murder of Tserendorj but had pleaded guilty to her manslaughter on 29 January 2021.

The State did not accept his plea.

The jury returned the guilty verdict to Mr Justice Tony Hunt shortly before 12.30pm this afternoon after eight hours and 59 minutes of deliberations.

Mr Justice Hunt thanked the jury for their hard work in the case.

Tserendorj, a Mongolian national who lived in Dublin for a number of years, was stabbed in the neck as she walked home from work in Dublin’s financial district.

The events unfolded during a period of Covid lockdown when the streets around the city centre were particularly quiet with very few people around.

The murder trial at the Central Criminal Court heard Tserendorj was returning home from work at around 9pm on 20 January when she was confronted by the accused asking for money.

When she told him she did not have any money the teenager inflicted the fatal stab wound to her neck which severed her carotid artery.

Tserendorj made her way to Connolly Station where she phoned her husband in distress and told him “I’m dying, please hurry”.

By the time she arrived at the Mater Hospital Tserendorj was struggling to breath.

Paramedic James Eagers told the court the journey to the Mater Hospital took about three minutes and in that time, it was obvious her distress was increasing.

Her breathing was laboured and as the ambulance arrived at the hospital her lips changed colour and turned blue.

Dr Jennifer Hastings, an intensive care consultant, told the court an MRI carried out on 25 January revealed the extent of damage to Tserendorj’s brain.

The injury led to a catastrophic lack of oxygen to the brain and Tserendorj remained on life support at the Mater Hospital for a number of days until her death was confirmed on 29 January.

The trial also heard how the teen again produced a knife later that same evening when he tried and failed to steal a phone from a second woman shortly after inflicting the fatal wound that led to Tserendorj’s death.

The jury was told the teen admitted stabbing Tserendorj when gardaí called to his home in relation to a different matter on 21 January.

Garda David O’Callaghan gave evidence that he attended the home of the accused with a search warrant in response to a complaint about the theft of an electric pedal cycle.

He met the teenager’s grandmother, who told him the teenager intended to hand himself in.

Garda O’Callaghan went upstairs where he met the accused in his bedroom and the teenager told him: “I stabbed that girl. I robbed her. It was me. I stabbed that woman at the CHQ”.

He told the Garda: “I panicked and pulled the knife out of my pocket and stabbed her in the neck. I done it. I didn’t mean to do it. I’m sorry for it.”

The accused was cautioned again later that evening and was asked to tell the gardaí what happened.

The accused said: “I went out on a bike with a knife to rob someone. I saw a woman with a mask, and I tried to rob her. I panicked and pulled the knife out of my pocket and stabbed her in the neck. I done it. I didn’t mean to do it. I’m sorry for it.”

During the trial the court heard evidence from Tserendorj’s husband, Ulambayer Surenkhor with the assistance of an interpreter, who said he received a distressed call from his wife at around 9.30pm telling him she had been stabbed in the neck.

The widower told prosecuting counsel Sean Guerin SC his wife said she had been confronted by someone wearing a black hat and mask who said: “give me money”.

“She said I don’t have money then he stabbed her and cycled away,” Surenkhor told the court.

Forensic pathologist Dr Heidi Okkers, who performed the postmortem on Tserendorj, told the court the only injury was a stab wound of 1.5cm located just below the earlobe.

The wound was approximately 5cm above the bifurcation of the carotid artery, the main vessel in the neck which branches into two.

Dr Okkers explained that this artery branches into the external and internal carotid artery, with the external supplying the blood to the scalp and face, and the internal supplying the blood to the right side of the brain.

She said that the internal artery had been transected in Tserendorj’s case.

Dr Okkers said that when the blood supply is cut off, the brain starts to swell as the tissue is dying.

“When the artery is severed, no blood is going to the brain. It is almost like a stroke. There is no oxygen going so eventually the brain will die,” she explained.

Sean Guerin SC, for the State, had contended the accused lashed out at Tserendorj repeatedly in a “callous, unprovoked and vicious act of thuggery” that was intended to cause injury.

Guerin said the teenager simply made a decision to take a knife, to swing it at the head and neck area and to stab Tserendorj.

“In common parlance, he took a knife and he went for the jugular,”, counsel said.

Guerin told the jury the focus of the case was solely on the accused’s intention.

Intention does not have to be premeditated, counsel said, it can be formed in an instant and dissipate in an instant.

Guerin said the accused intended the natural and probable consequences of his actions, and that was to cause serious harm.

“If the intent to cause serious injury exists and death results, a verdict of guilty to murder is deserved,” he said.

Lawyers for the accused told jurors the teenager intended to rob but not kill the mother-of-two.

Defence counsel Michael O’Higgins SC argued the appropriate verdict was not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter.

He said there was no evidence that the accused decided to kill Tserendorj because of frustration visited upon him when he did not get any money.

He asked the jury to consider whether this was a case where someone with malice aforethought was trying to stick a knife into someone’s neck or was it a chaotic event with pushing and shoving and flailing, and the knife accidentally went into the victim’s neck.  

He argued that far from “going for the jugular” as the prosecution had contended, what happened was more consistent with “pushing and shoving and flailing”.

“There is a doubt in this case that there was an intention to cause a serious injury,” he concluded.

After the guilty verdict was delivered, Mr Justice Hunt personally thanked the jury for their diligence in the case which he described as “very unpleasant”.

The judge remanded the teenager in custody to 9 December for mention with sentencing on 21 December.

Members of the boy’s family hugged each other and cried after the verdict was announced.

This is the second time this year the teen had gone on trial for murder.

The jury in the first trial, which took at the Central Criminal Court in April, was unable to reach a verdict.

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