A 37-year-old who stabbed to death a man who broke into his van and his partner’s car outside their home last year has been found not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter.
Patrick Murphy, of Drumcairn Parade, Tallaght, admitted he had killed 20-year-old Jordan Ronan on 26 July 2024, but told gardaà he was defending his family and property.
Judge Kerida Naidoo remanded him in custody for sentencing in January.
Mr Ronan was out in the early hours of 26 July last year and met two friends.
He was drunk and one of them told him he could stay in his home.
On the way there, he lagged behind, and his friend went ahead and waited for him in his house.
CCTV footage showed him getting in to Murphy’s unlocked van, before breaking into Murphy’s partner’s BMW.
Murphy came out of the house and stabbed the “intruder”.
Mr Ronan subsequently ran down Drumcairn Avenue and looking over his shoulder, before running into a lamppost and collapsing outside.
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When paramedics arrived, they discovered he had been stabbed in the chest.
He was taken to hospital and died at 4.40am that morning.
Murphy’s Revolut card was found on his body.
Murphy admitted that he had stabbed Mr Ronan, saying he did so to protect his family or property.
In her closing speech for the prosecution, Senior Counsel Patricia McLaughlin said Murphy had used force that was “disproportionate to anything Jordan Ronan had done”.
She told the jury they could see from CCTV and ring doorbell footage that Murphy had armed himself with a knife, ran out of his house, opened the door of the car and deliberately stabbed Mr Ronan in the chest.
“He pushed the blade almost all the way in,” she said, noting the knife penetrated the chest cavity, lung, heart and liver measuring a depth of 18cm.
“I say that is clearly murder. How could it be anything else to stab a boy in the chest and to do it deliberately, how could you intend anything other than serious injury?” she said.
However, Defence Counsel Ronan Kennedy told the jury that “whatever you may think about Mr Murphy’s actions, he is not a murderer”.
He said Murphy and his family were at home “minding their own business” when their “peace, their security” was violated.
He noted the youngest of the couple’s four young children was just a few months old at the time and said the interaction between Murphy and Mr Ronan lasted “no more than seconds”.
Murphy, he said, acted in the way that he did “out of sheer panic in the heat of the moment” after his property was violated by an intruder.
After deliberating for over seven hours and 40 minutes the jury returned this afternoon and found Murphy not guilty of murder, but guilty of manslaughter.
Ms Justice Naidoo remanded Murphy in custody for victim impact statements and sentencing on 26 January.