A man who strangled his father at a five-star resort in the midlands has been found not guilty of murder by reason of insanity.<\/p>\n
The 12 jurors accepted evidence given by two psychiatrists that the accused, Henry McGowan, was suffering from schizoaffective disorder when he killed his father at the Ballyfin Demesne hotel.<\/p>\n
McGowan (31), with an address at Clinton Street, Brooklyn, New York in the United States<\/a> had pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to the murder of John McGowan (66) at the Ballyfin Demesne, Ballyfin, Portlaoise, Co Laois<\/a>, on November 12th, 2024.<\/p>\n Defence counsel Michael Bowman had submitted this was a \u201cparticularly tragic\u201d case as a father\u2019s paternal instinct had driven him to prioritise his son\u2019s wellbeing above his own, with fatal consequences.<\/p>\n Prosecuting senior counsel Brendan Grehan said John McGowan had left the safety of his home in Connecticut and flown to Ireland \u201cwithout even stopping to drop a bag\u201d.<\/p>\n After arriving in Ireland, the successful Wall Street trader went straight to the Mater hospital and embraced his son, effectively taking custody of him, Grehan said. Counsel said the pair retreated to Ballyfin and the father ended up dead.<\/p>\n The barrister said it is often those closest to a person who develops an active mental illness who are \u201cmost at danger\u201d.<\/p>\n The jury of six men and six women spent just one hour and 23 minutes deliberating on Thursday before bringing in a unanimous verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity. <\/p>\n Grehan asked the court to commit Henry McGowan to a designated centre for inpatient care for not more than 14 days. <\/p>\n Judge Paul McDermott made an order committing McGowan to the Central Mental Hospital. He expressed his sympathies to the McGowan family and noted their \u201cgreat dignity and courage\u201d.<\/p>\n The three-day trial at the Central Criminal Court heard Henry McGowan was the youngest of five children in a family of Irish heritage. <\/p>\n Consultant forensic psychiatrist Dr Stephen Monks said McGowan told him he had smoked a lot of weed during his mid teens but stopped by the age of 20.<\/p>\n The trial heard McGowan first fell under the care of psychiatric professionals with an involuntary admission to a hospital in New York in January 2022. It was there that his first \u201cmanic episode\u201d was recorded and where psychosis, depression and suicidal ideation were observed.<\/p>\n Two months later, he was involuntarily admitted to a psychiatric hospital in Paris for four weeks after suffering from paranoid delusions on a flight from the US, where he had attempted to seize an infant in a bassinet. <\/p>\n Jurors heard McGowan lunged at the infant\u2019s family while under the delusional belief their child needed to be sacrificed to protect the plane. He had to be restrained by passengers and was arrested on his arrival at a Paris airport.<\/p>\n His father travelled to Paris in the days after McGowan\u2019s admission to assist with his return. The defendant was diagnosed with bipolar affective disorder following this incident.<\/p>\n Evidence was given that Henry McGowan took another trip to Europe in October 2024. In the lead-up to strangling his father, the defendant described experiencing impulsive behaviour, such as buying a \u201cconspicuous pink coat\u201d in Harrods in London and renting a Lamborghini in Paris.<\/p>\n Garda\u00ed interviewed McGowan four times, during which he said he grabbed his father by the chest and pushed him hard, before strangling him on a bathroom floor with his bare hands. He said he had told his father that he would \u201calways love him as he had his last breath\u201d.<\/p>\n McGowan later told consultant forensic psychiatrist Dr Stephen Monks that, on the day of the killing, he felt his father was not his real father. He described delusional ideas where his father was an imposter. The defendant said: \u201cI thought it like I was ordained by God to kill my father, like he was a source of evil.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man who strangled his father at a five-star resort in the midlands has been found not guilty…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":289729,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,8285,4320,6107,43,40,38,41,39,115],"class_list":{"0":"post-294776","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-laois","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-city","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-top-news","14":"tag-top-stories","15":"tag-topnews","16":"tag-topstories","17":"tag-united-states"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294776\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}