A jury has been shown the bloodied, bent knife that a man who denies the murder of his wife at their rural home in Co Mayo said he had used in the killing.
The prosecution told the Central Criminal Court that while the accused, James Kilroy, admits to killing Valerie French Kilroy four years ago, psychiatric testimony from expert witnesses will be central to the verdict in the case.
James Kilroy (50), a park ranger, has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to the sole charge of the murder of Ms French Kilroy (41) at their home in Kilbree Lower, Westport, Co Mayo, between June 13th and June 14th, 2019.
In his opening speech on Wednesday, Dean Kelly SC, for the prosecution, said the jury will be hearing "quite a lot of expert evidence compared to other trials" on psychiatric matters.
Outlining the case, counsel said the jury will hear that at around 2.30am on June 14th, 2019, a witness heard banging on her door and spoke to a man who she did not know, who said he had "travelled around the world many times and hers was the first house with the light on".
The woman later called gardaí, but they could not locate the man, who the prosecution contends was Mr Kilroy.
Around six or seven hours later, at around 9.30am, another local saw a naked man through the window of his home two fields away while he was having breakfast, Mr Kelly said.
The neighbour made a call to gardaí, who went to speak to the man, whom it transpired was Mr Kilroy.
Hospitalised
Gardaí detained Mr Kilroy under the Mental Health Act and made "significant efforts to get a doctor, but availability was bad," Counsel said.
Mr Kilroy was taken to hospital in Castlebar, where the accused was assessed. He then told the doctor he had "something to say to the gardaí", counsel added.
"He [Mr Kilroy] tells them he had killed his wife," Mr Kelly said.
A number of gardaí then went to the house at about 3pm, and found a "Ford camper van parked face-first into a shed".
There was a large amount of blood alongside the camper van, and inside they found the body of Ms French Kilroy.
The scene was preserved and an "extensive" Garda investigation began, the court heard.
A post-mortem examination, carried out by Chief State Pathologist Dr Linda Mulligan, reported the cause of death to have been ligature strangulation, blunt force trauma and a stab wound to the neck.
Mr Kelly said the jury will have to consider the "issue of sanity" and what impact someone's mental health can have on their "ability to wilfully commit crime".
Counsel said the jury will have to first deliberate on whether the accused was suffering from a mental disorder at the time of Ms French Kilroy's death, which is what the defence has claimed.
"You must then consider if that person did not know the nature and quality of the act, that they did not understand the essence of what they were doing," Mr Kelly said.
"Either they didn't know what they were doing, or, secondly, didn't know what they were doing was wrong, or, thirdly, was that person was unable to refrain from committing an act," Counsel told the jury.
"You will not be particularly concerned with who it is who killed Ms French Kilroy – it's likely it will not trouble you greatly," Mr Kelly told the jury.
Diminished responsibility
Counsel said it was open to the jury to also consider the verdict of not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter due to diminished responsibility caused by an established mental health issue.
"This is a difficult decision and there is difficult evidence," he said, adding that the jury is "required to leave all of your human sympathy or outrage outside the door".
Detective Sergeant Michael Doherty, of Castlebar Garda station, was one of the senior investigators in the case and showed the jury a 20cm knife bent sideways to almost a 90-degree angle.
The knife was found at the scene of the camper van and forensic analysis revealed that it had Ms French Kilroy's blood on it.
Det Sgt Doherty said the knife was shown to Mr Kilroy while the accused was detained, "and he identified it as the knife used by him on her".
A loose seat belt that had the deceased's blood on it was also shown to the jury, while a hatchet found "immediately proximate" to Ms French Kilroy's body in the camper van was found to have Mr Kilroy's DNA on it.
Det Sgt Doherty said that on June 14th, gardaí went to answer a call about a naked man walking in a field "in the direction of Croagh Patrick" and arrested him "for his own protection".
The detective said that when gardaí searched the house at Kibree Lower and found blood in the camper van, the bathroom of the house, and on the ground at the shed, "it was clear [Ms French Kilroy] met a violent death".
Det Sgt Doherty said Mr Kilroy told gardaí he had used drugs at various times in his life, and had been in inpatient care in 2001 due to a psychiatric incident.
The witness said Mr Kilroy told gardaí that he had killed Ms French Kilroy with a knife, and "went into some level of detail in describing the knife" by sketching it and also demonstrated how he killed Ms French Kilroy.
Detective Sergeant Paul Curran told Mr Kelly that gardaí searched the camper van, the house and then the wider area where a suitcase and travel bags were discovered bundled together in a field. In a rucksack, an air-pistol in its holster was found by gardaí.
In the briefcase, said Det Sgt Curran, was an Irish provisional driver's licence, two envelopes, a registered post stamp and an international vaccination booklet among other items.
The trial continues in front of Mr Justice Paul McDermott and a jury of seven women and five men, and is expected to last up to three weeks.
