A father-of-four who killed his 12-year-old son with a lump hammer was found guilty of murder but insane, at the Central Criminal Court yesterday.
John Carroll (49), Bayview Rise, Killiney, Co Dublin, had pleaded not guilty to the murder of his son, Andrew Carroll (12), at their home on April 30th, 2004.
Following the one-day trial, the jury delivered an unanimous guilty of murder but insane verdict after deliberating for 14 minutes.
Mr Justice Paul Carney ordered that the accused be detained at the Central Mental Hospital, where he has been since May last year. Evidence was given by Dr Harry Kennedy, clinical director at the Dundrum hospital, for the defence, and by forensic psychiatrist Dr Paul O'Carroll, for the prosecution.
Prosecuting counsel Patrick Gageby SC told the jury there were only two options in this case: "Guilty of murder or either guilty of the act of murder, but insane." The facts of the case were not in dispute with the defence, he said.
The accused, a seaman, lived at the family home with his wife, Trudy, a civil servant, and their four children, Gregory (16), the deceased, Andrew, and twins Lorna and Nathaniel (9). Mr Gageby described the accused as "reserved and controlling".
On the day of his son's killing, Carroll got up at 7am and dropped his wife at Killiney Dart station and his eldest son to college. He had taken the day off and was home alone with Andrew that morning.
The court heard that the father and son were watching a video, Chicken Run, together. "He went into the kitchen to make rashers in the microwave and then I killed him," Carroll told gardaí.
Andrew died from six to eight blunt-force injuries to the head, according to a postmortem examination by State Pathologist Prof Marie Cassidy.
Andrew's skull had broken into pieces and his throat had been slit. The head injuries alone were sufficient to cause death, the court heard.
"Sometime around 11 that morning, Mr Carroll had killed the boy and put his lifeless body upstairs and covered it with a duvet or sheet," Mr Gageby said.
The accused mopped up the blood in the kitchen and changed his clothes. He then sat down and watched snooker on television and went to Tesco to buy food for the other children.
Asked by gardaí if he remembered what he bought, Carroll replied: "Yes, and it was dearer than usual."
His son, Gregory, arrived home at 5pm. "His father said to him, 'I killed Andrew'," Mr Gageby said.
"This was terrible news for such a boy to hear," he said.
He had also written a note for his wife because he could not immediately reach her.
Det Garda Gary McGrath read the note to the court. "Trudy, I am sorry to give you all this grief. All important documents are in the safe or under the bed in our room," Carroll wrote.
He also asked his wife to "keep the family together" and "keep in contact with me in jail".
Carroll phoned his wife at work and told her to come home because there had been a "disaster". "He picked her up at the Dart station and told her he had killed Andrew with a lump hammer in the kitchen," Mr Gageby told the court.
Gardaí were phoned at 6.22pm and arrived two minutes later. "Gardaí found the cold body of the boy upstairs. He had been manifestly dead for a while," Mr Gageby said.
The accused was interviewed at the home and told gardaí: "I just flipped, I killed my son."
He said he used the lump hammer "because it was in the kitchen". Andrew "was at the wrong place at the wrong time", his father said.
Andrew did try to defend himself, Carroll said. "But the blows were so quick he didn't have much chance."
Det Garda Gary McGrath asked the accused: "What did you feel as he lay on the floor dying?"
"I didn't feel anything," Carroll replied. Carroll said he was compelled to kill Andrew: "I was driven by the fact that once I started I had to complete it."
Andrew "didn't do anything to deserve this, he was a good child", Carroll said.
The reason the accused gave gardaí for the killing "defied logic", the court heard.
Carroll had become increasingly obsessed by the idea of impending bankruptcy and being investigated by the Revenue.
"Both Mr Carroll and his wife were doing nicely, with secure jobs and pay," Mr Gageby said.
"I thought the death of some of the children would alleviate some of the misery of the future," Carroll told gardaí.
"What I thought was that it would be better if the children were dead than face a life of poverty," he said.