LAST UPDATE | 8 Mar 2023
JAMES KILROY, WHO admits killing his wife Valerie at their rural Mayo home, demonstrated to gardaí how he had killed the mother of three and in one interview sketched the knife he had used, a trial jury has heard.
The trial also heard this evening that the murder accused went into some level of detail in interview about his drug taking throughout his life and told officers he had been admitted into psychiatric care in 2001.
James Kilroy (49), with an address at Kilbree Lower, Westport, Co Mayo is charged with murdering mother-of-three Valerie French Kilroy (41) at their home on a date unknown between 13 and 14 June 2019 inclusive. He has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.
Patrick Gageby SC, defending Kilroy, has made a number of formal admissions to the court on behalf of his client including that he killed his wife.
Giving evidence today, Garda Leanne Nallen told Anne Marie Lawlor SC, prosecuting, that she was on duty at 9.30am on 14 June, when she and her colleague Garda Aisling Barrett received a call to attend a location in the Westport area where there were reports of a naked man running through fields.
When they arrived at the scene, Garda Nallen observed the accused completely naked in the bottom left hand corner of a field and his hands were covering his genitals. “He was dirty and dishevelled looking with scrapes on his body, he appeared disorientated and in a very distressed state,” she recalled.
Kilroy told the witness that he was on a pilgrimage to Croagh Patrick and that God had given him a path to follow. Garda Nallen made a decision that the accused was suffering from a mental disorder and presented a threat of harm to himself or others.
“His behaviour seemed not normal to me so I brought him to a place of safety, Westport Garda Station to get a doctor to assess him,” she said. Garda Nallen escorted the accused out of the field and handed him two towels.
She detained him under section 12 of the Mental Health Act 2001, contacted a medical practitioner and got an ambulance to bring him to the Accident and Emergency Department at Mayo University Hospital.
A form was completed regarding the accused’s involuntary admission and it was decided that he would be transferred to the adult mental health unit. Kilroy told the doctor present in the room that he would like to speak to gardaí when he was informed about this.
When the doctor asked the accused if she should leave, he said that it might be best. Garda Nallen testified that once the accused was informed he was to be transferred to these services he said he wanted to make a confession and stated: “I killed my wife and kids.”
The accused told the garda that he had escaped from his house, that his wife’s name was Valerie and that they had an argument about him not doing enough four days previously.
Kilroy said the altercation took place at night and he was stabbed in the back by his wife after a fight. He also said he was divorced and that he didn’t know where Valerie lived now.
Garda Nallen told her sergeant about the disclosure and gave him directions to the accused’s house. A patrol car was sent to the Kilroy’s house to see if there was any truth as to what had been admitted.
The witness escorted the accused to the adult mental health unit, spoke to another doctor and told her what Kilroy had said. The doctor informed her that Valerie worked in the unit and that she would try phoning her.
Garda Nallen arrived with Garda Barrett at the Kilroy home at 2.55pm that day, knocked at the front door and shouted out. One of the children came to a front window and the witness asked if his mammy or daddy were there. The child said he couldn’t find them and they must have gone to work.
When a second child joined the first child at the window, the garda asked if they could get into the house and entered the kitchen area through the back door. At that point the witness noted a third “extremely lethargic” child lying on the ground asleep, so she woke him up.
“I noted there were dirty dishes on the counter, clothes were thrown around, the countertops were messy and flower pots on the window sill were knocked over,” she said.
The witness became emotional as she told the jury how two of the children’s nappies were extremely soiled and that the front of the other child’s school uniform was extremely dirty. There was also a smell of urine in the living room area.
Garda Nallen remained in the living room with the three children whilst Garda Barrett helped to locate Ms French Kilroy. Garda Barrett soon informed the witness that a body had been located outside.
The two sourced nappies for the two children and changed them. When she asked the older child if he had eaten, he told her that the three of them had shared a banana. Another garda went to the local shop to buy cereal and food as it was obvious that they were extremely hungry, she said.
Michael D Hourigan BL, prosecuting, read a statement from Garda Aisling Barrett, who said she had found a green Ford camper van which was parked facing into the shed at Kilbree Lower in Westport. As she reached the back of the vehicle the garda saw a large amount of blood on the rear and at the side of the van.
She observed a human hand hanging out from the opened passenger door. A child’s seat was placed over the body and she informed her colleagues of having found a female body whom she believed to be Ms French Kilroy.
In her statement, witness Fiona Needham said that she was woken up at 2.30am on the morning of 14 June to hear her doorbell ringing and a person banging on her front door. She was a little bit afraid and rang her father, who drove to her house.
Needham could hear her father talking to the man and telling him to go away. She banged on her window and also told the man, who had a bunch of wild daisies in his hand, to go away as the gardaí were on their way. She said the man spoke in an English accent and she had never seen him before.
She recalled him saying he had travelled the world a few times over but wasn’t making any sense. When gardaí arrived they searched the house and the fields nearby but couldn’t locate him. She said the man, who she later found out was Kilroy, must have run through the fields as he got away so quick.
Under cross-examination, Irene O’Brien told Gageby that she was a conservational manager with National Parks & Wildlife Service in north-west Mayo. She said her colleague Kilroy was also a conservational manager and covered north-east Mayo.
O’Brien said she did a lot of research on Peregrine falcons and went with Mr Kilroy and other colleagues to Downpatrick Head on 11 June 2019, where the birds were nesting.
Asked what Kilroy’s demeanour was like that day, the witness said he was bent over furiously writing notes, very focused and had barely looked up at them. “He just seemed to be very busy and focused. It was only meant to be a quick visit but we ended up being there longer as James was talking a lot,” she recalled.
O’Brien said it seemed that Kilroy was “overtalking” and was “very frantic”.
“I thought to myself what was going on with James. I thought he was nervous as he sometimes got nervous, often as part of our jobs we did talks or walks”.
Earlier today, Detective Sergeant Michael Doherty told the jury that when Ms French Kilroy’s body was discovered, it was immediately apparent that there was a very large amount of blood and “no question but that she had met a violent death”.
A knife containing the deceased’s blood was found outside the shed, which was shown to the jury. It was later identified by Kilroy as the knife he had used. A seatbelt with the deceased’s blood on it was also taken from the camper van.
State Pathologist Dr Linda Mulligan, the detective said, concluded that Ms French Kilroy had met her death by ligature strangulation in association with blunt force trauma to the head and a stab wound to the neck. He said gardaí determined the mother of three to have been violently killed and arrested Mr Kilroy at Mayo University Hospital for the offence of assault causing harm at 5.17pm on 14 June.
The court heard that a doctor examined the accused to see whether he was fit to be interviewed and provided the opinion that he should not be questioned for three hours as he had admitted to taking two grams of cannabis and five units of alcohol the previous evening.
Kilroy was deemed fit to be interviewed at 10pm that night and four interviews were conducted with him over the next two days. The detective said the first interview went into some level of detail about the accused’s drug taking throughout his life and that he had been admitted into psychiatric care in 2001.
In other interviews the accused had demonstrated how he had killed his wife and the knife he used. In the final interview Kilroy sketched the knife he used and described how he put the deceased into the camper van and walked away. The accused said Ms French Kilroy was still alive when he was walking away.
The accused was charged with murder on the evening of 16 June. Det Sgt Doherty said a hatchet with blood on it had been found in the camper van and in proximity to the deceased’s body. The blood matched Kilroy’s DNA profile.
Under cross-examination, Det Sgt Doherty agreed with Gageby that Ms French Kilroy was an immensely popular woman particularly amongst the healthcare community in Castlebar.
The detective confirmed that Kilroy has no previous convictions and had never come to the adverse attention of gardaí for anything including marital or domestic violence.
The trial continues tomorrow before Ms Justice Mary Ellen Ring and a jury of ten men and two women.
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