A man has been sentenced to life imprisonment after being found guilty of the murder of his mother and the manslaughter of his father, at a special sitting of the Central Criminal Court.
John Francis Dolan (27), of Ravensdale Road, East Wall, Dublin, denied charges that on a date unknown between June 16th and June 19th, 1999, he murdered his parents, Mrs Gertrude Dolan (56) and her husband John (71), at the family home.
The jury took just under eight hours to find Dolan guilty of the murder of his mother and not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter of his father. They had returned to court for the special sitting on Saturday after failing to reach verdicts on Friday.
Previously, Mr Kenneth Mills SC, prosecuting, told the court that the accused man had lived in the family home with his parents and was 26 years of age when the deaths occurred. He was an only child. His parents were retired and his mother, Gertrude, had been in receipt of disability benefit as a result of ill-health.
Mr Mills said that Mr and Mrs Dolan were last seen on or around June 17th but their bodies were not discovered until June 28th. He said the bodies of the couple were found decomposing under a duvet blanket in the living room of their home, possibly 10 days after their deaths, and that flies at the window had caused neighbours to become suspicious that something was wrong.
During the trial, Dolan said that following a row with his mother, upon returning from the pub, he fetched a knife from the kitchen to cut a cake. "More words led to another and I just lost it, I just lost control, I just lost it," he said. "I went for me ma. I picked up the knife and went for her."
Asked by Mr Barry White SC, defending, why he did that, he replied: "I don't know, maybe I was fed up. I don't know. It was totally out of my character."
When his father came down the stairs and asked what had happened, "instead of turning to show what I'd done, I turned and stabbed him", Dolan said. Asked why he did that, he said: "I don't know. It could've been shock." Asked by counsel if he intended to kill him or cause him serious injury, he said: "No."
Det Garda Sean McAvinchey had told the court that he first met the accused man in the living room of the family home where the bodies of his parents lay under a blanket. He interviewed him under caution at Store Street Garda station shortly after the bodies were found. The accused man told gardai that the killings happened the previous Thursday after returning from having "a few beers".