A man accused of murdering a Clare taxi driver said he felt "possessed" when he killed him, a jury in the Central Criminal Court heard yesterday.
Anthony Kelly told gardaí: "It was like I was possessed. It was like fire coming out my head."
Kelly (54), Ruan, Co Clare, with an address at Emlagh More, Waterville, Killarney, Co Kerry, has pleaded not guilty to murdering Liam Moloney (56) outside Ruan in February 2005.
Brendan Grehan SC, defending, told the jury that Kelly admitted the killing, but that he was suffering from a mental disorder which substantially diminished his responsibility for his actions.
Kelly has already pleaded guilty to robbing Mr Moloney of a car and house keys, a wallet and €10 and a pocket-knife and to taking Mr Moloney's car and setting fire to it. He admitted going to Mr Moloney's apartment with the intent to commit theft and to possessing a knife, axe and machete on February 11th, 2005.
He also pleaded guilty to possessing a sawn-off shotgun in Kerry on February 24th, 2005.
Tom O'Connell SC, prosecuting, said it was the State's case that Kelly was not suffering from a mental disorder and that his motive was to enrich himself with Mr Moloney's retirement money.
After Kelly returned from living in the US in April 2001, he got a job in security in Shannon airport. He moved to Kerry in 2003, where he told friends he was looking after the house of his Swedish girlfriend.
A mutual friend introduced Kelly to Mr Moloney, and all three men became friends.
Such was the extent of their friendship that Kelly asked Mr Moloney to be his groomsman at his wedding in Stockholm in December 2004, but it transpired that this relationship was a fiction. In the meantime, Mr Moloney got a €70,000 retirement payment from Aer Lingus. At the time of the killing, Kelly owed him €150.
The day before, Kelly rang Mr Moloney and arranged to meet him the following day in Ennis, where Mr Moloney was working as a hackney driver. Mr Moloney dropped Kelly off at the spot where he was later killed - the gate lodge of a private estate outside the village of Ruan.
In interviews with gardaí, Kelly said he had been depressed in the preceding months and was upset by alleged racist remarks made by Mr Moloney. He admitted "the thought of killing Liam" came to him "a number of times".
He had a knife and small axe which he used for chopping wood and Mr Moloney asked him several times what he was doing.
"Every part of me was burning," he told gardaí. "I remember something in my head saying 'do it, do it'. I was like a wild animal."
Mr Kelly then struck Mr Moloney's head 17 times with the axe, dragged him from the car inside the gates and slit his throat with a kitchen knife. His body was found the following day by the caretaker.