The trial has opened in the Central Criminal Court of William Roche, a 23-year-old man accused of murdering John Carroll in December 1998. William Roche, with an address in Killaloe, County Clare, denies the murder and a second charge of false imprisonment.
John Carroll was kicked and beaten to death in a remote laneway near Newport in County Tipperary. He was profoundly deaf and grew up in foster care in Cappamore after the death of his mother.
Twenty-one at the time he was killed, John Carroll was close to completing a course in upholstery.
In early December 1998, he was drinking one evening in Killaloe with a number of people including the man now accused of murdering him, William Roche.
It is the prosecution case that he was initially beaten outside the home of one of the group and then driven to an isolated lane, where he was beaten to death with a ratchet handle and abandoned. The prosecution says that three people, including William Roche, were in the car.
