A MAN charged with the attempted rape and murder of a young girl told a psychiatrist he was on a mission to kill three women because this would reduce the time of his being burned, scalded and eaten in hell, the Central Criminal Court heard yesterday.
Dr Damian Mohan said he had diagnosed the accused man as a paranoid schizophrenic who suffered from a false beliefs system and distorted perception.
The accused had in mind killing three other women and had watched them as they went to work, but did not act on his plan, the witness said.
He believed the accused had killed the 13-year-old girl because he had both the plan and the opportunity to do so.
Dr Charles Smith, medical director of the Central Mental Hospital, agreed with the diagnosis of schizophrenia, adding, that his condition was "chronic".
The accused was most probably ill before the killing of the girl, ill at the time and ill afterwards, Dr Smith said. The man was suffering from a core delusion that he had to kill three people to get three sections of 12 minutes off a 36-minute torture session in hell.
The killing of the girl was something the accused was building up to in the form of "a sacrifice" and that was why there were more killings due.
He believed the killing was "illness-driven". "Had he not been ill the killing would not have occurred," he added.
He believed the killing was triggered when the girl said to the accused: "You're going to kill me."
Dr Smith and Dr Mohan were giving evidence on the second day of the trial of the man who has denied the rape and attempted, murder of a 13-year-old girl on April 14th, 1996.
The State Pathologist, Dr John Harbison, said the girl died as a result of severe head injuries which fragmented her skull and were consistent with being inflicted by two heavy stones.
He said there was also an attempt to strangle the girl before she was beaten. She may have been unconscious by that stage, Dr Harbison said.
In a statement to gardai, the accused said he attempted to rape the girl and then killed her after asking her to go into a field to look for mushrooms.
In court yesterday Det Sgt Brendan MacArdle, of the ballistics section at Garda Headquarters, said he had examined rock found near the girl's body.
Two stones were produced in court which he identified as those he had examined. Both were, blood-stained, he said. One, weighed 24lb while the second, weighed 23lb.
A brother of the accused wiped away tears as he told the court he and his family were distressed by the killing. The accused had been admitted to St Columba's Psychiatric Hospital in Sligo some years earlier and also in December 1995.
The accused spoke often of getting warnings from something or somebody saying he had to move on but could not explain these, his brother said.
The defendant had become increasingly strange leading up to the killing in April 1996.
His family arranged for his admission to St Columba's in December 1995 and he was released in late January 1996.
The witness said the accused had left his home a few days before the killing because he was afraid of the warnings, but he was persuaded to return home.
Dr Smith said he had examined offenders for some 20 years and" said schizophrenia was "almost impossible" to feign. "I really did see it at the time as a very straight forward case," he said.
The accused felt he had to kill to reduce the time he would spend in hell being tortured. Dr Smith told the accused the deceased girl was "in the wrong place at the wrong time" and the accused had said: "No, she was in the right place at the right time." He was peculiarly lacking in remorse and his inappropriate mood was a symptom of schizophrenia.
Dr Smith said CMH doctors believed he was still dangerous and that women were particularly vulnerable. He was responding slowly to treatment. It would be fair to say he was in a chronic state and would require treatment for a long time.
He said that when the accused was admitted to St Columba's Hospital in Sligo in December 1995 he had thought people could read his mind, another feature of schizophrenia.
The trial continues today before Mr Justice Flood and a jury.