THREE days after she stabbed and killed her housemate, Monika Matracka dragged Michal Rejmer’s body to the back garden of the Castletroy home they shared and then lied to gardai when they came to investigate.
This Tuesday, the 35-year-old Polish national was found guilty of the manslaughter of the man she had a relationship with and financially supported her through college.
She will be sentenced on March 6 next.
Following a two-week trial where Monika Matracka denied the murder of Mr Rejmer at The Pines, Briarfield, Castletroy, Limerick, the jury heard that the blood stained body of the popular Polish long distance runner with Dooneen AC was found in the back garden wrapped in a sheet and concealed under wooden pallets and bags of turf.
Mr Rejmer was reported as missing on January 6 after he had not reported for work following the Christmas holidays in 2015.
He had been killed sometime between December 30 and 31 by his former girlfriend when she stabbed him several times after a dispute over money.
Monika Matracka even text Michal wishing him Happy New Year after he had been killed and dialed his number several times on January 5, 2016.
The 35-year-old Polish woman lied to Limerick gardai and denied any knowledge of Michal’s disappearance when she told detectives that she hadn’t seen him for a few days.
After Michal’s body was found during a missing person search, Matracka admitted to Detective Garda Pat Whelan while sitting in a patrol car outside a petrol station that she had killed him but claimed it was in self-defence. She had been refused entry to a friend’s house as her own had been declared a crime scene.
She claimed that Michal ran at her demanding the money he gave her for her studies and when he fell, she picked up a knife and stabbed him in the arms.
At the end of the trial at the Central Criminal Court, the jury were asked to consider that while her actions afterwards were “bizarre, shocking and outrageous”. her lies did not make her a murderer and was “robotic” when she left the body in the house as she went to work.
Defence counsel Mark Nicholas said it was a cover-up of “amateur, frantic and panic proportions” but when the truth came out, she made admissions.
Despite the evidence of the State pathologist that it was unusual for someone to die from stab wounds inflicted to the arms, her self-defence claim was “a leap too far” according to the prosecution Paul Carroll who also said that puncture wounds to the back and thighs indicated a use of excessive force.
However the jury were reminded of interview inconsistencies, the fact that Mr Rejmer’s body was left in the house, then moved to the back and the scene “cleaned” with several items burned.
After two days of deliberations which spanned over five and half hours, the jury found Monika Matracka not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter by majority verdict and was remanded in continuing custody for sentence on March 6 next.
