A 20-year-old Co Louth man who choked his infant nephew to death was this afternoon found guilty but insane and ordered to be detained in the Central Mental Hospital for an indefinite period.
After deliberating for one hour, the jury delivered its unanimous verdict on David Brennan of Marsh Road, Drogheda, for the murder of 17-month old Jack Everitt Brennan at Marsh Road, on or about March 1st 2000.
Discharging the jury from further service for life, Mr Justice Carney described the case as "distressing for everybody that was in any fashion connected with it."
He added: "I am directing that the accused man be detained in the Central Mental Hospital until the pleasure of the government be known."
During the four-day trial at the Central Criminal Court, the jury heard medical evidence that the accused had been diagnosed as suffering from paranoid schizophrenia.
He frequently went into a psychotic state during which he experienced paranoid delusions and hallucinations. Dr Charles Smith, the medical director of the Central Mental Hospital, said it was in this sort of confused state that the killing occurred.
David Brennan had told him that "the reason for killing baby Jack was to relieve his sister [the infant's mother] from a bad future in relation to the child." The court had heard that Brennan was barred from the house for four months in October 1999 and when he returned, baby Jack was occupying his room. "In an abnormal way he would have felt resentful about that," Dr Smith said.
Brennan's mother, Patricia, gave evidence of having taken him to Ardee Psychiatric Hospital on the night of the killing. He was prescribed medication but allowed home. He was admitted to Dundrum on March 3rd 2000, shortly after the killing.
The court heard that Brennan would require medical treatment for the rest of his life.
At the outset of the trial, the defence read out a statement on behalf of David Brennan in which he admitted taking the infant from his bed on the night of February 29th, 2000 and placing him in his buggy.
He took from the garden shed a red brick and orange clothesline rope. Pushing the buggy, he headed towards a disused quarry underneath a railway line and there, "using his hands" choked him. "He then bound his body and dropped him from the railway line into the water below."