A Dublin man accused of killing his parents pleaded not guilty to murder at the Central Criminal Court yesterday.
Mr John Francis Dolan (27), of East Wall, Dublin, pleaded not guilty to the charge of murdering Mrs Gertrude Dolan (56), and her husband, Mr John Dolan (71), at the family home on a date unknown between June 16th and 19th, 1999.
Opening the case Mr Kenneth Mills SC, prosecuting, told the jury the accused lived in the family home with his parents and was 26 years of age when the deaths occurred. He was an only child and had worked at CIE and on an oil rig.
His parents were retired, but his mother had been getting disability benefit because of ill health.
Mr Mills said Mr and Mrs Dolan were last seen around June 17th but their bodies were not discovered until June 28th, when Gertrude's two brothers, Michael and Frank Power, visited the house looking for their sister.
He said the bodies of the couple were found decomposing under a duvet blanket in the living room, and flies at the window had made neighbours suspicious that something was wrong.
After knocking at the house door several times that day and not gaining entry, Mr Frank Power returned late in the evening, looked through the letterbox and saw a light on, Mr Mills said.
He knocked again, and the accused man opened the door. Mr Power went into the living room where "he saw something suspicious on the floor, and there was a substantial smell", Mr Mills said.
Mr Power then took the house key from the accused and left for his own home in the same street, to telephone his brother, Michael, who later arrived.
The two men then went to their sister's house and entered using the key. Giving evidence to the court, Mr Frank Power said he and Michael went into the living room where John Francis was sitting smoking a cigarette.
The bodies of Mr and Mrs Dolan were lying on the floor, covered with a blanket. "Michael said, `What happened?' to Francie, and he said, `I had to stab them'," Mr Power said. "All I heard him say was that he was very sorry for what he had done," Mr Power told the court.
Mr Frank Power then telephoned gardai, who arrived a short time later. The trial before Mr Justice Carney continues today in the absence of the jury of six men and six women to allow legal argument.