A MENTALLY-ILL woman who believed she was possessed by the spirit of Princess Diana when she killed and mutilated her housemate, will remain in the Central Mental Hospital (CMH) where she is undergoing treatment.

Grace Miano (53) had been charged with the murder of Malawian man Limbani ‘Robert’ Mzoma (27) at Tudor Lawns, Foxrock, Dublin on 1 November 2018. She was found not guilty of murder by reason of insanity by a unanimous jury verdict last month and today appeared before Justice Paul McDermott at the Central Criminal Court.

Elva Duffy BL for the prosecution told Justice McDermott that a consultant psychiatrist at the CMH had recommended that Miano remain in the hospital’s care for ongoing treatment. She said doctors had diagnosed Miano with schizoaffective disorder, a mental illness.

Duffy outlined the report’s findings that Miano has made progress and has insight into her illness but is at risk of relapse due to her condition. She is undergoing medical treatment and therapy provided by a multi-disciplinary team at the hospital.

Justice McDermott committed Miano to the CMH under the provisions of the Criminal Law (Insanity) Act 2006 to continue her treatment.

Evidence in trial

Miano’s defence counsel, Michael Bowman SC, told the jury that Miano on occasion “believed she was effectively possessed by Princess Diana, who came to tell her what she had done. She was not in her right mind, and claims that the day after [the killing], Princess Diana told her she was the one who did it,” he said.

Counsel had said that the delusions were “as real as they could be to her” and added that the medical opinions were “all one way”.

The trial heard from consultant psychiatrists that Miano told gardaí that she killed Mzoma to “protect Prince William” and had cut off his genitals after death “to protect women”. She also told psychiatrists that she had been inhabited by the spirits of Princess Diana and other British royals to stop a plot by Kate Middleton who was trying to put Prince William and Prince Harry in danger.

During the trial, former Detective Sergeant Colm Ó Giolláin told Dwyer that two males had gone to the house at around 11pm on the night. They told gardaí that Miano had said the deceased was in the sitting room.

Det Sergeant Ó Giolláin said one of the males said that Ms Miano told him: “I put a drip in your friend, I’m a good doctor.”

Miano then urged the male to go into the sitting room, where she said Mzoma was in a “Halloween costume”.

A second male told the detective that he saw blood on her arm, that she was holding a knife and that she was speaking “gibberish”.

The detective said the two men then left the house to raise the alarm and met a neighbour who was on his way to the house to ask that “chanting” noises be kept down.

Detective Sergeant Paul Curran told Dwyer that photographs taken at the scene showed blood on the floor, door, fireplace, light-switch and ceiling of the sitting room and that an amount of “fleshy tissue” was also photographed in the kitchen sink.

Chief State Pathologist Dr Linda Mulligan told Ms Duffy, for the prosecution, that she conducted a post mortem examination of Mzoma at the Dublin City Mortuary on 2 November 2018. Dr Mulligan said that Mzoma sustained 65 wounds comprised of stabbing injuries, blunt-force trauma, lacerations and abrasions.

Dr Mulligan said Mzoma’s cause of death was primarily due to a blunt-force trauma injury and a stabbing injury to the top and rear of the head, which caused a complex skull fracture and bleeding in the brain. She said that the blunt force trauma could be consistent with a broken poker recovered from the sitting room or with the fat end of an axe found in the back garden.

A contributory factor to Mzoma’s death was internal bleeding caused by broken ribs to the lower back, she said.

She said that a large triangular wound, measuring 18cm by 17cm, that severed the genitals from the body had no vital reactions associated with it. Dr Mulligan agreed with Duffy that the injury was inflicted after death.

Two other stab wounds to the neck were also inflicted post-mortem, said Dr Mulligan.

Dr Mulligan said a toxicology report showed an alcohol/blood level was 259mg per 100ml of blood. She said that this was “not enough to cause unconsciousness” but was a “moderate to severe level of acute intoxication”.

Detective Sergeant Ó Giolláin said that Miano was interviewed four times at Dun Laoghaire Garda Station in the course of the Garda investigation.

Ó Giolláin said that, in her statement to gardaí of the events of the night, Miano said she had planned to get Mr Mzoma drunk and had grabbed a poker and struck him multiple times.

“It [the poker] was the only thing I could see. He just wouldn’t die. I hit him with a knife to protect myself and all women,” Ms Miano told gardaí. She alleged that Mr Mzoma beat and forced himself on her and that she was “relieved he was dead so he can’t abuse anyone anymore”.

When the statement was read back to her by gardaí, Miano said: “I did it to protect Prince William and myself”.

Miano alleged that on the night Mzoma wanted to rape her in front of other people and alleged that he had previously been violent towards her and spiked her drink. The trial heard that Miano was tested for 43 types of drug after her claims that her drink had been spiked that night but all tests returned a negative result.

The accused said in her interviews that she left the house when Mzoma was sitting in a chair in the sitting room unconscious and that foam was coming out of his mouth. She said a number of other males were also in the house drinking but she did not know how many.

Miano told gardaí that when she returned to the house the men were still there and told her, pointing to an unmoving Mr Mzoma, “there is your abuser”. She told gardaí that the males ordered her to “finish off” the deceased as it was “the only way to be safe”.

“They said that ‘if he wakes he will kill you’,” she told gardaí.

She told gardaí that she struck the deceased on the leg with a poker and thought he was already “not alive”.

Miano also alleged in her interview that Mzoma knew about her “secret fiancé” from living in the house and that he told her he was recruited by a woman to kill her fiancé.

She told gardaí that she touched Mzoma’s “willy with the stick” and thought “this is the thing that has been raping me”. She told gardaí that she chopped off Mr Mzoma’s genitals with a knife after “losing all normality” due to the alleged “rape, threats and beatings”.

Miano said in her statement that she originally tried to remove the genitals with a “potato knife” but returned to the sitting room with a large bread knife.