A woman on trial accused of murdering a pensioner who was “put over” Ireland’s highest sea cliffs told a friend that she had “battered” a man with a rock and that she liked it, the Central Criminal Court heard on Tuesday.
The trial also heard a recording of a separate phone call in which the accused woman, Nikita Burns, said that after a fight with the deceased Robert ‘Robin’ Wilkin, she and her co-accused Alan Vial drove until 3am and “pushed him [Mr Wilkin] off Sliabh Liag”. She said, “they won’t find him,” but added that there was blood on the roof of the car in which the alleged assault took place. She added: “There is a slim chance we’ll get caught for it but if I go down, I go down.”
Ms Burns (23) of Carrick, Co Donegal and Alan Vial (39) of Drumanoo Head, Killybegs, Co Donegal have pleaded not guilty to the murder of 66-year-old Robin Wilkin on June 25th, 2023 in Donegal. Mr Wilkin’s body was found one week later in the water below the Sliabh Liag cliffs.
Ms Burns pleaded guilty to impeding the apprehension or prosecution of another person for an arrestable offence but the prosecution did not accept her plea.
Chris Quinn on Tuesday told prosecution counsel Bernard Condon SC that Ms Burns seemed “panicky and deranged” when she knocked on his door around midnight on the night after the alleged murder. Ms Burns had previously been staying at Mr Quinn’s apartment but had moved out a week or two earlier.
Mr Quinn said Ms Burns repeatedly told him that she was a “murderer” before saying out loud, with two other people present, that she was “after murdering someone”. She described how she and her co-accused were driving with another man in the car when the two men started fighting.
Mr Quinn said the accused told him that either she or Mr Vial got a rock from somewhere along the road and she hit the man with the rock in his face. Mr Quinn recalled her saying that she “battered him in the face with the rock and she liked it”. He added that she “didn’t seem to care that much” and after telling her story, asked for some of Mr Quinn’s antidepressant or antipsychotic medication before eating a chicken curry.
Mr Quinn said he went to bed and could hear laughter from the room where Ms Burns and the two other men were sitting.
Under cross-examination, Mr Quinn confirmed to Alan Vial’s defence counsel Shane Costelloe SC that Ms Burns said she “battered the fella until his face was out the back of his head. Then she said she liked it.”
Sharon O’Dowd told Mr Condon that she spoke on the phone that night with one of the men who was in Ms Burns’s company in Mr Quinn’s apartment when Ms Burns took the phone and began talking.
Ms O’Dowd recalled the accused telling her that she “beat some man’s head in, her and Alan”. The witness decided she needed a recording of what Ms Burns was saying so she called her son to record the conversation on his mobile phone.
The recording was played to the court today in which Ms Burns could be heard saying that she and Mr Vial picked up a rock.
She said Mr Wilkin had been “fighting with us” and that he was “touching up my legs and doing whatever to me and that’s why Alan got pissed and dragged him out the back and started caving his head in.”
The trial continues before Mr Justice Paul McDermott and a jury of five men and seven women.
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