A 32-YEAR-OLD MAN who is accused of murdering three members of his family at their Co Louth home last year told garda\u00ed that he had stabbed his younger special needs brother like a \u201cblood bag\u201d, a Central Criminal Court jury has heard.<\/p>\n
The jurors were also told they will hear evidence that the three victims sustained a combined 139 stab wounds.<\/p>\n
Roisin Lacey SC, for the Director of Public Prosecutions, said in her opening speech today that the accused Robert O\u2019Connor told garda\u00ed that he had a row over drugs, lost his head and only meant to kill his father and brother, but not his mother.<\/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 (56), his father Mark O\u2019Connor (54) and his younger brother Evan O\u2019Connor (27) at their home in Drumgowna between 28 and 29 September 2025, both dates inclusive.<\/p>\n
Opening the prosecution\u2019s case, Lacey said the accused Robert O\u2019Connor accepts he caused the death of the three victims in the case.<\/p>\n
Counsel said the deaths of the three victims occurred sometime between Sunday 28 September and Monday 29 September but that the actual times of their deaths were not entirely clear.<\/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. She said Evan was supported by a charitable organisation, who provided learning and living support.<\/p>\n
Counsel said a carer had arrived at Drumgowna at 9.30am on the morning of 29 September. \u201cJust before the carer reversed in on the Monday, she saw something and thought it looked like a Halloween decoration of some kind inside the gate,\u201d said the barrister.<\/p>\n
The lawyer said the carer waited for Evan and when he didn\u2019t come out, she thought this was unusual. She said the carer got out of the car and walked back towards the gate, where she saw the \u201cheavily blood-stained body\u201d of Mark O\u2019Connor inside the front gate of the house.<\/p>\n
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
Lacey said 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.<\/p>\n
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
She said a local doctor arrived sometime later and pronounced each of the three victims dead.<\/p>\n
The court will also hear evidence, the lawyer said, that garda\u00ed took statements from various individuals who had heard something the night before, or had encountered the accused man on the morning of 29 September.<\/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 28 September saying: \u201cI\u2019ll end you, I\u2019ll fucking end you\u201d.<\/p>\n
Counsel told the panel that the same neighbour saw the accused man at his gate on the morning of 29 September. Lacey said the witness will say that Robert O\u2019Connor was \u201cagitated, which was not unusual\u201d and that the accused told him: \u201cI\u2019m sorry about the noise last night, where do we go now?\u201d<\/p>\n
Another neighbour heard the accused man shouting and cursing around 8.30pm on the evening of 28 September.<\/p>\n
There will be evidence from another neighbour, Lacey said, who described a strange noise like a \u201chorse kind of noise\u201d but recognised it as a male voice. Around 8.45pm on 28 September, the same neighbour saw a male figure in the middle of the back garden of Drumgowna, jumping up and down in the air.<\/p>\n
The lawyer said this neighbour\u2019s wife had sent a Facebook message to Louise O\u2019Connor that evening asking her if everything was alright, but didn\u2019t receive any response back.<\/p>\n
The prosecution barrister went on to tell the court that a woman had gone to the front of her house around 9.45am on the morning of 29 September when she saw a shadow pass across her window. When the woman opened the door, Robert O\u2019Connor was there and he apologised to her, saying he didn\u2019t want to frighten her.<\/p>\n
Lacey said the evidence will be that the accused said: \u201cI can\u2019t put it into words, it\u2019s all muddled in my head, they tortured me for years, my family, they manipulated me for years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Counsel said the accused asked could he come into her house as he wanted \u201cto charge\u201d but she refused. When the woman asked the accused what happened, Robert O\u2019Connor said \u201cI killed them\u201d.<\/p>\n
When the woman asked him whether the sirens were for him, the accused man said \u201cyes\u201d. Lacey said the woman found the accused level-headed and not aggressive in any way before he headed off in the direction of Tallanstown. The woman rang 999 at 10.04am that morning.<\/p>\n
There will be evidence, Lacey said, 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 garda\u00ed 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
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<\/p>\n
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
Robert O\u2019Connor said his father Mark was behind his mother and he had killed him next and then his brother.<\/p>\n
When asked why he had killed 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. The accused said he had stabbed his mother in the forehead in the sitting room following an argument.<\/p>\n
The accused added: \u201cI stabbed my father with a kitchen knife from a block of five knives. I left when I stabbed my father and mother. I went back for my brother and stabbed him. I stabbed him like a blood bag\u201d.<\/p>\n
Counsel said the jury would hear that the accused told garda\u00ed he had been using cocaine lately and had bought some \u2018Wildcat\u2019; which counsel said is a slang word for mephedrone and is an amphetamine. She said it was a synthetic drug and the effect on the body was similar to cocaine.<\/p>\n
Lacey said the evidence will be 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
The accused also told detectives in Drogheda Garda Station that he had gone upstairs to take cocaine and watch pornography on the evening of 28 September. When the accused went back downstairs, the three others were in the sitting room and Robert told garda\u00ed he \u201cwent for a knife\u201d.<\/p>\n
The accused said he was angry and asked his mother why she did not feel empathy. He said he first slashed his mother on the head with a kitchen knife and made the three of them stand with their heads down. The accused said his mother ran for the door and that his father had started to charge to the door.<\/p>\n
The defendant said he \u201cstabbed them multiple times and accepted he had killed them\u201d.<\/p>\n
Counsel said the accused also told garda\u00ed that the \u201calgorithm on Evan\u2019s iPad\u201d was affecting his reality. \u201cI kept asking him was he the programmer,\u201d the accused said.<\/p>\n
When interviewed by garda\u00ed, the accused said he had a feeling some of the drugs he took earlier had affected him.<\/p>\n
Robert O\u2019Connor told garda\u00ed he was running around the garden with a wheelbarrow full of water and had done pull-ups in the garden. He said he had taken the three deceased outside and \u201chad to throw them out to see who got into heaven\u201d.<\/p>\n
Counsel said the accused also told garda\u00ed he had used a knife and didn\u2019t remember leaving it in a log cabin.<\/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
Counsel said a pathologist will say Evan was alive when the vast majority of his wounds were sustained.<\/p>\n
Lacey will continue her opening speech on Friday before Judge M\u00edche\u00e1l P O\u2019Higgins and a jury of six men and six women. The trial is expected to last until 30 October.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 32-YEAR-OLD MAN who is accused of murdering three members of his family at their Co Louth home…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":648992,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[42851,12209,38409,61,60,191070,56086,43,275378],"class_list":["post-648991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-central-criminal-court","tag-co-louth","tag-drumgowna","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-jury-trial","tag-murder-trial","tag-news","tag-robert-o"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648991","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=648991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/648992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=648991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=648991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=648991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}