Jasmine McMonagle

Richard Burke was found not guilty of murder, but guilty of the manslaughter of mother-of-two Jasmine McMonagle from Killygordon at a Central Criminal Court ...

He said he was standing up, not on top of her, and had his foot by her side. Burke told the negotiator that there were two children up in bed and that Jasmine was "sleeping". When he confronted the first officer with a glass breaking hammer and refused to put it down, Burke was tasered, handcuffed and searched. She said following the killing and Burke’s arrest, she visited her son in prison and he was still preoccupied with the false idea that Jasmine had given the children drugs. During the first of three garda interviews which took place in the hours after, Burke made admissions that he had killed Jasmine McMonagle. Dr Kearns said in the course of compiling his report he also spoke to Burke’s mother, Ann-Marie Burke in July 2020. Dr Kearns told the trial Burke harboured a persistent delusional belief that his partner had been unfaithful and was giving drugs to the children. He said after consuming these, he “jumped behind the wheel” of the car, crashed it and set fire to the gift he had bought Jasmine. Burke said he had been taking it for two or three days before killing Jasmine and had also been drinking vodka on the night. Burke was quickly barricaded in the rear of the property, where he immediately confronted the first officer to breach the barricade with a hammer. Burke said on one date he woke up “absolutely fuming” and, in a fit of rage, he went to buy cannabis and cans of alcohol. Later that same month, Burke said Jasmine told him she did not want him around because he was disrupting the household.

Richard Burke (32), of Killygordon in Co Donegal, had pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to manslaughter. A mother-of-two, Ms McMonagle (28) was strangled ...

Trial judge, Mr Justice Paul Burns, told the jury there was no evidence that Ms McGonagle was anything other than a "good mother and a good person". Prosecution counsel Anne Marie Lawlor told the jury that Ms McMonagle was a devoted mother who was deeply loved by her friends and family. The unanimous verdict was returned by a jury at the Central Criminal Court sitting in Monaghan.

A 32-year-old man has been found not guilty of the murder of Jasmine McMonagle in Co Donegal but guilty of her manslaughter on the grounds of diminished ...

He told the jury that a finding of not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter due to diminished responsibility was not an acquittal or a not guilty verdict. He told the jury that, in a case like this, it was for the defence to prove, on the balance of probabilitites, that Burke was suffering from a mental disorder and that that disorder was such that it substantially dimiinished his responsibility. Please review their details and accept them to load the content. Mr Bowman agreed with the prosecution that the evidence "leads in one direction only" and he urged the jury to return a verdict of not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter by virtue of diminished responsibility. Ms Lawlor said that what the jury was to consider was whether the offence of murder was made out of the evidence. She said that he was not just responsible in a general sense, but also in a criminal sense of the offence of killing her.