LAST UPDATE | 12 Oct 2020

A MURDER ACCUSED told gardaí he had taken tablets and had been hearing voices in his head for weeks when he stabbed a homeless man to death in a Dublin park.

Philip Dunbar told gardaí that the voices sometimes told him to cut or harm himself and that he would never have killed Adam Muldoon if he was in his sober mind. He said he couldn’t remember the stabbing and didn’t mean to do it.

Philip Dunbar (20) has pleaded not guilty to the murder of 23-year-old Adam ‘Floater’ Muldoon in Butler Park, Jobstown Park, Tallaght, Dublin 24 on 22 or 23 June 2018. Muldoon’s body was found in the park on the morning of 23 June. He had been stabbed 183 times.

Sergeant Nuala Burke today told prosecution counsel Pauline Walley SC that she was called to Tallaght Garda Station at about 1am on 24 June 2018. Dunbar and his grandmother Mary Dunbar had called to the garda station saying they had information about the murder. When Sgt Burke arrived Dunbar told her he was “involved in a murder” the witness said.

He was cautioned and gave a voluntary statement, telling gardaí that he had been “chilling all day” with a friend in the Glenshane area on the day leading up to Muldoon’s death.

The accused said that he met Muldoon, who he referred to as ‘Floater’, and Muldoon followed him towards an area he called “the field”. Dunbar said he helped Muldoon over a wall and then they had an argument or a disagreement. He added: “When I stabbed him it was just blank.”

He said he had taken 15 “upjohn” tablets and blacked out, adding: “I know I did the stabbing but I don’t have a memory of doing it. I didn’t mean to do it. I just blanked out.”

He continued: “I can’t remember killing him. I would never be able to do it in my sober mind.”The voices, he said, sometimes tell him to cut himself or harm himself and, he said, he had been hearing them for weeks. He said he sees and hears things and is addicted to tablets. He added: “I always need them. I’m always out of it. It’s just to take the pain away, and the misery.”

When asked if he wanted a solicitor, Dunbar said: “What’s the point? I’m guilty. I’m owning up to it. I did it.”

Dunbar also told gardaí that the clothes he had been wearing on the night were in a bag in his house and he said he would show them where he threw the knife that he had used into a body of water in Sean Walsh Park near the Square Shopping Centre in Tallaght.

Garda Dylan McGrath said he went to the Dunbar home and found a Lonsdale bag with a Dunnes Stores shopping bag inside it. The shopping bag contained a pair of grey Nike tracksuit bottoms, a black Calvin Klein t-shirt, a baseball cap, white socks and khaki greeen Nike Air runners.

Sgt Burke gave details of retrieving the knife from the water at Sean Walsh Park. 

The trial earlier heard from Sgt Kieran Kilcoyne who told Walley that he spoke to Dunbar at Dunbar’s home at about 5pm on the same day that Muldoon’s body was found. He was cautioned that if he said anything that he knew was not true or believed to be false he could be guilty of an offence.

Dunbar spent about one hour and 45 minutes giving a witness statement in which he said that he had been “chilling out” around the estate that day.

He said he had a few joints, but wasn’t drinking and spent time playing Playstation at home on his own, went to a friend’s house twice and did a “lap” of the estate. It was during his lap of the estate, he said, that he saw Muldoon sitting by a wall in Glenshane Green. He said this was the only time he saw Muldoon that night and he was at home by 12.30am.

Sgt Kilcoyne agreed with Walley that the accused had given an “extraordinary amount of detail” in his witness statement. 

The trial continues in front of Justice Paul McDermott and a jury of six men and five women. One juror was discharged due to a concern regarding Covid 19.

Comments are closed as legal proceedings are ongoing.