Karen Harrington, 37, is on trial at the Central Criminal Court in Cork city charged with the murder of Santina Cawley. The youngster was found critically injured on the morning of July 5 2019 at the then home of Ms Harrington at Elderwood Park in Boreenmanna Road in Cork.
Mr Gillane asked Ms Harrington to “solve the mystery” of what had occurred to Santina. Karen said she had thought about what had occurred to Santina for three years and had no answer. Mr Gillane put it to Ms Harrington that when Michael Cawley left Santina was “alive and uninjured.” Ms Harrington said that she couldn’t confirm that.Karen answered: “I ask myself the same. All I can recall back when I [en]vision Santina, I don’t see any bruises or injuries or blood or anything like that.Mr Gillane said that in the defendant’s statements to gardai she indicated that when Michael left the apartment at 3am she comforted the child and took care of her.
“I am not in a position to answer that. I do not know.” She said she would accept that she didn’t kill Santina. Mr Gillane ended his cross examination of Ms Harrington by saying that when gardai arrived at the then apartment of Karen Harrington to investigate a noise complaint neighbour Dylan Olney noted that there was a ‘dead silence.”
In the garda interview Karen acknowledged that photographs taken in her apartment that night “looked very bad.” Det Sgt Noonan put to Karen that she was the only person in the apartment the night Santina was murdered.Karen said : “Yes I was there.”