A murder trial jury has retired to consider its verdict in the case of David Brennan, the 20-year-old man accused of murdering his infant nephew.
The jury has two options open to it; guilty of murder, which carries a life sentence, or guilty but insane, in which the accused would be detained in the Central Mental Hospital Dundrum for an indefinite period.
David Brennan of Marsh Road, Drogheda, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of 17-months old Jack Everitt Brennan at, or near Marsh Road on February 29 or March 1 2000. His defence admitted that he killed the infant, but that he was not of sound mind when he did so.
The Central Criminal Court has heard that the infant was strangled, trussed up with a rope on which a brick was attached and thrown from a bridge into a quarry pond.