A 33-year-old man has been found guilty of manslaughter due to diminished responsibility after he killed a retired, elderly farmer in a Cork hospital.
Dylan Magee of Churchfield Green, Churchfield, Cork, had denied the murder of Matthew Healy (88) in the Mercy University Hospital (MUH) on January 23rd, 2023, when he was arraigned on the charge, but he pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Mr Healy by reason of diminished responsibility.
A jury of eight men and four women took two hours and 33 minutes to find Magee not guilty of murder but guilty of the manslaughter of Mr Healy due to diminished responsibility on Thursday afternoon at the Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork.
Magee’s counsel, Brendan Grehan SC, said his client had instructed him to express at the earliest available opportunity “his deep remorse for what happened to Mr Healy and the obvious distress caused to his family and friends”.
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Ms Justice Siobhán Lankford remanded Magee in custody to allow for the preparation of a victim impact statement from Mr Healy’s family and a probation report on Mr Magee. She listed the case for mention on January 12th when Magee is to appear by video link.
During the three-day trial, the jury heard Det Garda Michelle Quinn tell how Mr Healy, whose wife, Delia, had died just 11 days earlier, was admitted to MUH early on the morning of January 13th, 2023, after he fell out of bed and hit his head at his house in Berrings, Cork.
She said Magee, who did not know Mr Healy, was admitted to MUH on January 19th, 2023, after being referred by his GP. Magee told staff that he had taken 60 Xanax tablets, and blood tests showed he tested positive for a chemical found in cannabis.
The jury heard that Magee was admitted to room 2 in St Joseph’s Ward and, at around 5.15am on the morning of January 22nd, he became agitated and began attacking Mr Healy, who was asleep in another bed in the room, when a care assistant and nurse had stepped into the hall.
Magee had punched Mr Healy between four and six times in the face before staff intervened. He struck him another three times before staff managed to pull him away from the elderly patient, who remained motionless in the bed and did not respond or try to protect himself.
Det Garda Quinn said that “nurse Dijo Augustine caught Dylan Magee by the T-shirt and was trying to pull him back with both hands, breaking his finger in the process – he shouted at Dylan to try and get him to stop and Dylan Magee then said, ‘This man ate my son.’”
The court heard from Assistant State Pathologist Dr Margot Bolster that Mr Healy died as a result of “cardiac arrest as a consequence of traumatic injuries to the brain and spinal cord complicated by aspiration of blood due to blunt force trauma to the face and head”.
Defence witness, consultant psychiatrist Dr Stephen Monks, said Magee was having paranoid thoughts and hallucinations before his admission to MUH for suspected delirium – a mental condition which occurs abruptly over hours, unlike schizophrenia which can last for weeks or months.
He said Magee remembered washing blood off his hands in the hospital and being taken to court, but very little of being interviewed.
Prosecution witness, consultant psychiatrist Dr Richard Church, said he agreed with Dr Monks that Magee’s ability to refrain from the attack was impaired. Cross-examined by Mr Grehan, he said at the relevant time Magee was very severely impaired to the point of being unable to refrain from acting.
