The jury in the trial of a man accused of murdering his ex-girlfriend at his flat in Cork City on New Year's Day in 2023, has been sent home for the day after hearing closing arguments.
Ms Justice Siobhán Lankford told the jury of seven women and five men that she will finishing charging them in the morning, after which they will retire to consider their verdict.
Miller Pacheco, who is 32 years old, denies murdering 28-year-old Bruna Fonseca, at his flat at No. 5 Liberty Street, Cork City, on 1 January 2023.
Ms Fonseca moved to Ireland from her native Brazil in September of 2022. Mr Miller travelled to Cork in November 2022 to be reunited with here, however, they broke up within a few days of his arrival.
Earlier, in his closing statement to the jury, Prosecution Senior Counsel Bernard Condon said Miller was a "self-absorbed coward" who choked his ex-girlfriend to death after his "needy" attempts to manipulate her to get back together, failed.
Mr. Condon said the thinking of the accused was "if I can't have her, no-one can".
"Miller Pacheco was a very needy person, a very self-absorbed person who had become like a child depending on Bruna, who was a functioning adult...He made (his problems) her problem. He was prepared to weaponise victimhood and use it against her. That is emotional blackmail. He is an arch manipulator. He is a coward", he said.
Mr. Condon described her as an extremely caring human being "perhaps too nice, too caring ", who allows "this man to drip-feed this emotional blackmail of her".
Mr. Condon said the Prosecution had established beyond reasonable doubt that "he had put his hand over her throat and pressed, that he intended to kill her and this was manual strangulation with the right hand".
In his closing address, Defence Senior Counsel Ray Boland said the Prosecution's closing speech was in effect an emotional manipulation of the jury by the Prosecution in what he described as a character assassination of Miller Pacheco.
He insisted there was no evidence to suggest that Miller felt that if he could not be in a relationship with Bruna that "nobody could".
"He tells his friends he killed her, he shows them the body, he confusedly brings a sheet out to dump it, but nothing else though. The Prosecution says he has his backpack and passport (later on the street) but that is so that he will have his documents on him for the guards. There is nothing to stop him leaving, going away.
"He seems to be a very tightly wound individual. Other students at the English language school said he was quiet and serious. He certainly seems to feel things deeply. There is absolutely no history of violence in the relationship in the previous six years", said Mr. Boland.
He said it was his client's account that he had Bruna in a choke hold to stop her from hitting him.
"He could not see her face and could not have seen the difficulty she was in. How long does it take - and this is a morbid question - for the person to die? Did he miscalculate in holding her until she went quiet?
He added that the State Pathologist Dr Margot Bolster had not completely ruled out the possibility that events occurred in the manner described by his client.
He said there was nothing to prevent Miller from fleeing the scene. Nor was there any evidence of him intending to kill her.
"Obviously this is a very, very tragic case. A very, young, ambitious, beautiful, kind person lost her life in this. But you must approach it dispassionately. The issue is not, who is the better person. The issue is what was in Miller Pacheco's mind at the time? Was there an intention to kill or cause serious harm".
Ms Justice Siobhán Lankford told the jury to set aside their "prejudices, subjective feelings or emotions", and to focus solely on the evidence in the case.
She will continue her charge to the jury tomorrow.
