Gardai say son admitted snapping mother's neck
A young man accused of murdering his mother told gardai he grabbed her in a headlock and snapped her neck, and knowing she was dead, he strangled her again.
The accused man, Damien Donnan, had gone into his mother's bedroom on the night of the killing looking for a cigarette, the Central Criminal Court heard today. His mother, Jennifer Donnan woke up and asked him what he was doing.
She kept saying she was getting my father," the accused said in a garda statement made on April 17 2000, the morning of the killing. He said his mother tried to whack him with a handbag but he caught her hand and she fell back. "I got her in a sort of a headlock and pulled her to the ground. I caught her by the throat with my two hands. I had one knee on each side of her body leaning down on her throat."
The accused said he was snapping her head back. "I realised what I was doing. I kept down on her throat until she stopped moaning." At that stage, froth was coming out of the victim's mouth.
"I realised she was dead. To me she was dead," he had told gardai. The accused said he then went out into the hallway because he was "cracking".
He returned to his mother's bedroom and spoke to the limp body lying on the floor, saying: "Look what you made me do." The accused said he "strangled her again for a few minutes because I was angry."
Damien Donnan, aged 20, of De Valera Park, Thomondgate, Limerick, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Mrs Jennifer Donnan, 42, at the family home on April 17 2000. The court has heard that the accused has received psychiatric care and had been prescribed anti-depressants.
The court also heard that the relationship between mother and son was fractious since the break up of the marriage between Mrs Donnan and her husband, Daniel.
Det Garda Derek Smart told the jury that when questioned, the accused told gardai that his mother was an alcoholic. "I have been getting her drink since I was seven. I just had enough, I had enough." He said that when he grabbed his mother by the throat, he was thinking: "If I let her up, I was dead." She was "roaring and screaming. I kept thinking of the damage done and the damage that would be done," he told gardai.
After she was dead, he called his brother David, then aged nine. "David, I'm after killing Mam," he told him. David was crying.
The accused's father, Daniel Donnan told the jury that his son had become very reclusive in his mid teens. He would sit around all day watching TV, refused to eat or wash and generally did not appear to care about himself.
The witness agreed with defence counsel Patrick Gageby SC that his son's behaviour coincided with the break up of his marriage to the deceased. His son had been prescribed medication but refused to take it.
Mr Donnan told the jury that his son's behaviour put his late wife under a lot of strain and that she had begun to drink a lot. The witness said he had been hospitalised "a couple of times" as a result of injuries inflicted by Mrs Donnan and agreed that his son would have witnessed some of these incidents.
However, in the year before her death, he and his wife "were talking pretty well" He had visited the family home on the evening of the killing and everything seemed fine.
In other evidence, Deputy State Pathologist Dr Marie Cassidy told the court that the deceased has sustained a fracture to the larynx. There was bruising and abrasions around the front of the neck. Dr Cassidy put the cause of death as asphyxiation due to compression of the neck consistent with manual strangulation.
The trial continues today (Wed.)
