Courts

Man who stabbed neighbour with machete had not been taking medication

Patrick McDonagh (52) came to believe medication made him ‘defencless against Satan’ and gave him heart palpitations

Flowers were left near the location where pensioner Peter McDonald (77) was killed in July 2020. Photograph: Collins

Eoin Reynolds
Mon Jan 29 2024 - 17:03

A care worker for a man who admits killing but denies murdering his neighbour with a machete told gardaí that the accused, who has bipolar disorder, had not been taking his medication in the months before the fatal assault, the Central Criminal Court has heard.

Aaron Murtagh Casey told Patrick McDonagh’s trial that the accused believed his medication made him “defenceless against Satan” and gave him heart palpitations. Mr McDonagh had also previously told him that Satan was “throwing things at him that were not true”, accusing him of things “day and night”.

Mr Murtagh Casey also told the trial that he received a call from Mr McDonagh while armed gardaí were trying to negotiate with the accused to safely remove him from his home following his neighbour’s death. The witness said Mr McDonagh was disorientated during the call and didn’t understand why gardaí were outside.

Mr Murtagh Casey told Mr McDonagh to listen to gardaí and that they were there to help, not harm him. The trial has previously heard that following a stand-off lasting several hours, armed gardaí broke into Mr McDonagh’s house and used a Taser to subdue him before he was arrested.

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Patrick McDonagh (52), with an address at Whitechapel Road, Clonsilla, Dublin 15, is charged with murdering his next-door neighbour Peter McDonald (73) on Whitechapel Road on July 25th, 2020. He has pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to manslaughter. The State has not accepted his plea.

The jury has heard that “gentleman” pensioner Mr McDonald was found in a pool of blood outside his home after being violently attacked with a machete by his neighbour.

In his opening speech last week senior counsel Philipp Rahn, for the Director of Public Prosecutions, told the jury the evidence will show that Mr McDonald died by machete and stab wounds to the head and neck in the early hours of July 25th, 2020.

Mr Rahn said he expected the main issue for the jury would be whether Mr McDonagh’s mental health on the night amounted to the “special defence of diminished responsibility”. Mr Rahn told the jury that Mr McDonald was a “quiet man, a pensioner, who kept to himself and lived with his cats” and that Mr McDonagh, who had a history of mental health issues, was his next-door neighbour for five or six years.

Mr Murtagh Casey told Mr Rahn that he got to know Mr McDonagh in 2014 when they struck up a close friendship. He became Mr McDonagh’s carer in 2016 and would stay with him two days every week and help him with his medication and other things. In the hours before Mr McDonald was killed, Mr Murtagh Casey spoke to the accused on the phone for about 35 minutes.

During that call, Mr McDonagh told him that things were getting “worse and worse” with dogs barking and people “roaring and shouting” coming back from parties late at night. Mr McDonagh had severe insomnia, constant tinnitus and complained that the noise wasn’t helping. Mr Murtagh Casey described the conversation as normal and nothing that would raise any cause for alarm.

The witness further agreed that he knew the deceased and had never heard Mr McDonagh say a bad word about him. “They had a great relationship,” he said.

Mr Murtagh Casey agreed with senior counsel John FitzGerald, for Mr McDonagh, that the accused told him he suffered from bipolar disorder and during Covid-19 restrictions his condition deteriorated. He began having conversations with himself and would say that the devil was “telling him to end it all”. He was particularly sensitive to noise and was finding it hard to sleep.

The witness agreed that he told gardaí that Mr McDonagh had been “off his medication” for a couple of months because, he said, it “made him defenceless against Satan” and gave him heart palpitations. Mr Murtagh Casey tried to get him to see a doctor but “he just didn’t think it would do any good because at this stage his mind was gone”.

Mr Murtagh Casey had told Mr McDonagh that his medication was available at the chemist across the street from where he lived, but he did not pick it up.

The trial continues before Mr Justice Michael MacGrath and a jury of nine men and three women.

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