A man (32) accused of murdering three members of his family at their Co Louth home last year told garda\u00ed that he only meant to kill his father and brother, but not his mother.<\/p>\n
Roisin Lacey SC, for the Director of Public Prosecutions, said in her opening speech on Thursday that the accused told garda\u00ed that he had a row over drugs and lost his head, killing his parents and his brother with special needs.<\/p>\n
When re-arraigned before the Central Criminal Court this afternoon, Robert O\u2019Connor, of Drumgowna, Louth Village, Dundalk, Co Louth, pleaded not guilty of murder by reason of insanity or guilty of manslaughter on the basis of diminished responsibility to the triple murder of his mother Louise O\u2019Connor, his father Mark O\u2019Connor and his younger brother Evan O\u2019Connor at their home in Drumgowna between September 28th and 29th 2025, both dates inclusive. <\/p>\n
Opening the prosecution\u2019s case, Lacey said the accused, Robert O\u2019Connor, accepted he caused the death of the three victims in the case. <\/p>\n
Referring to the accused man\u2019s younger brother, Evan O\u2019Connor, Lacey said he had very significant special needs, was severely autistic and had learning difficulties. <\/p>\n
Counsel said a carer had arrived at Drumgowna on the morning of September 29th when she saw the heavily bloodstained body of Mark O\u2019Connor inside the front gate of the house. When the carer looked across at the house, she saw Evan\u2019s body lying across the step of the patio door with blood on the bottom of his legs. <\/p>\n
The jury will hear that the carer got back into the car and drove to a neighbour\u2019s house, where she called 999 at 9.38am that morning. Garda\u00ed and members of the armed support unit arrived at Drumgowna later that morning.<\/p>\n
Lacey said the evidence will be that beside Mark O\u2019Connor\u2019s body was a beer bottle, an orange kitchen knife and a butter knife. The lawyer told the jurors that when garda\u00ed entered the house sometime later, they observed Louise O\u2019Connor\u2019s body \u201cequally heavily bloodstained\u201d on the kitchen floor. <\/p>\n
Counsel said the jury would hear evidence from a neighbour who will say that he recognised the accused man\u2019s voice coming from the O\u2019Connor household on the night of September 28th saying: \u201cI\u2019ll end you, I\u2019ll fu**ing end you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lacey said that when the accused was arrested on suspicion of killing his parents and brother he told garda\u00ed: \u201cI killed them; I killed my mother, father and my brother.\u201d The accused man also told detectives: \u201cI slashed my mother, she gave me a look and I could see a reflection of my dad in her face\u201d. <\/p>\n
When asked why he had killed the three members of his family, counsel said that Robert O\u2019Connor told garda\u00ed he had a row over drugs, only meant to kill his father and brother, but not his mother and had \u201clost my head\u201d. <\/p>\n
The accused man also told garda\u00ed he had stabbed his brother Evan like a \u201cblood bag\u201d. <\/p>\n
Lacey said when the accused was in the back of a Garda car, he said he was \u201cnot sorry for his father or brother\u201d but was sorry for stabbing his mother to death. <\/p>\n
Counsel said the jury would hear that the accused told garda\u00ed he had been using cocaine lately and had bought some \u201cWildcat\u201d, which counsel said is a slang word for mephedrone and is an amphetamine. Lacey said the evidence will be that the accused told garda\u00ed that his parents had wanted to speak to him about his drug consumption but Robert O\u2019Connor had told them he did not want to stop taking cocaine. <\/p>\n
There will be evidence that garda\u00ed had observed the accused on foot walking in the direction of Tallanstown that morning. When they stopped the accused, he was highly aggressive and agitated and shouted at them: \u201cI\u2019m looking for ye\u201d.<\/p>\n
When gardai asked the accused to show them his hands, he refused and shouted: \u201cShoot me, shoot me.\u201d The accused\u2019s hands were blood-stained at the time, the court heard.<\/p>\n
Counsel said the jury would hear that Mark O\u2019Connor had 44 stab wounds, with nine of those to his head; that Louise O\u2019Connor suffered 20 stab wounds, with eight to her trunk, while Evan O\u2019Connor had 75 stab wounds, with 25 of those to his head and neck. <\/p>\n
Lacey will continue her opening speech on Thursday before Judge M\u00edche\u00e1l P O\u2019Higgins and a jury of six men and six women. The trial is expected to last until October 30th.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man (32) accused of murdering three members of his family at their Co Louth home last year…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":648942,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9690,42,9689,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-648941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-dundalk","tag-headlines","tag-louth","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648941","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=648941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648941\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/648942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=648941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=648941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=648941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}