A man accused of the murder of a couple in Co Roscommon last year told gardai shortly after being taken into custody that things had "gone crazy" and he had "just killed two people", the Central Criminal Court has been told.
The State Pathologist, Dr John Harbison, told the court that Mrs Catherine Doyle (28) and Mr Carl Doyle (29) died from multiple stab wounds. He said Mr Doyle was stabbed as he lay dozing on a settee, and Mrs Doyle tried to defend herself from the blows with her forearms before she too died after being stabbed 16 times.
Mr Mark Nash (25), whose last address was Clonliffe Road, Drumcondra, Dublin, has denied the murders of Mr and Mrs Doyle at their home in Caran, Ballintober, Castlerea, Co Roscommon, on August 16th, 1997.
He has also pleaded not guilty to a further count of unlawfully and maliciously causing grievous bodily harm to Mrs Doyle's sister, Ms Sarah Jane Doyle, who was then his girlfriend, at the house on the same date.
In court yesterday, Mr Nash's defence counsel did not contest verbal and written admissions he made to gardai about the killings.
The jury heard memos of interviews and a statement he made to gardai shortly after being taken into custody on the evening of August 16th last year. Sgt Kevin Duffy gave evidence that he cautioned the defendant, who told him: "Things just went mad. I lost it completely. Things are gone crazy, man, I just killed two people."
In a memo of Sgt Duffy's interview with him, which Mr Nash signed two days later, he went on to say: "I don't know why I killed them. I didn't mean to hurt my girlfriend or anyone. I have been playing it over in my mind and I can't get an angle on it at all."
The court was told the defendant had asked for a solicitor, and one was immediately called for him. A local solicitor, Mr Peter Allen, had arrived at the station at 8:45 p.m.
Mr Allen's arrival interrupted another interview with Garda detectives which Mr Nash had been "happy to continue" when he heard a solicitor had been contacted.
Det Garda Anthony Reidy, Crime Investigation Unit, Mill Street, told Mr Michael Durack SC, prosecuting, that in this interview Mr Nash told him that on the night of the killings, Mr Carl Doyle had returned from a visit to the toilet and "started playing with a knife".
"He started threatening me with it, playfully," Mr Nash told gardai. After a time, he said, "I started threatening him back."
Then, he said, "I just went crazy". He recalled stabbing Carl Doyle "two or three times" in the chest and went on to relate going upstairs and hitting Ms Sarah Jane Doyle and Mrs Catherine Doyle with a stove handle.
When his interview with gardai resumed following the arrival of his solicitor, he told them: "Catherine somehow made it downstairs." He found another knife, he said, and "I stabbed her with it".
In a signed written statement dictated in the presence of his solicitor at 9.50 p.m., immediately after this interview, Mr Nash outlined a more detailed account of what happened.
Reading the statement to the court, Det Garda Derek Dillon said Mr Nash had told gardai he had been born in Ballina, Co Mayo, in 1973, but had been moved to England in 1974. He had returned to Ireland a year before his arrest, and had been living with Ms Sarah Jane Doyle. They were due to be married in March 1998.
His statement said that when he and Ms Doyle arrived at the Doyle house for the weekend on the night of Friday, August 15th, smoking cannabis, drinking and "general chit-chat" had gone on for "a couple of hours".
He got "very drunk", he said, and had gone to the bathroom and got sick. When he returned, the two sisters were upstairs and Mr Doyle was asleep on the couch. "I woke him up and asked him if he wanted a drink," he said.
Mr Doyle had then gone to the toilet and on the way back "he got a knife from somewhere".
"Carl was waving the knife in jest," he said. This went on for two to three minutes before Mr Nash said he took the knife from Mr Doyle and started brandishing it back at him.
"At which point I just completely lost control. My head just went," he said. "Carl just basically showed me his chest and said `Finish me off'."
"I have no idea what came into my head but the thought came into my head to attack the girls as well," he continued.
He then went upstairs to where the two sisters were and "proceeded to hit Sarah Jane with the handle of the stove". He turned on Catherine, who had been "screaming" at him to stop, and "beat her about the head" too.
"The next thing, I was downstairs again," he said, "Catherine was downstairs too. There was another knife," he said. "Catherine was on the ground. I stabbed her in the chest."
He went outside and heard rustling in the grass. He thought it was Sarah Jane but it was Catherine. He bent down over her, put his arm around her neck and tried to strangle her, "but she was still breathing when I got up".
"It was during the last instance with Catherine that I realised what I was doing," his statement continued. He went back into the house and grabbed Mr Doyle's jacket and his own wallet and ran through what he felt "was like a thousand fields". He ran for three hours. He got to a railway line and sat there for a while, waiting, "with the intention of throwing myself under a train", he said.
"I cannot understand why I killed Catherine and Carl," he said. "I wish it was me. I am sorry to everyone for betraying them, especially Sarah Jane.
"Tell Catherine and Carl's children that they were nice people," he added. Their parents "did nothing wrong" to lead him to kill them. They should know that "it was my fault", the statement ends.
A letter written by Mr Nash to Sarah Jane Doyle while he was in custody on 17th August last year was also read to the jury. In this, Mark Nash wrote that "for some time now", he had had "violent tendencies". "The other night was one such episode," he wrote.
The letter, which asked her if she was carrying his child, went on to say: "That was not Mark you saw the other night. That person lay buried beneath the surface. I don't know what the trigger is."
Prof Harbison said Mr Doyle "appears to have been stabbed while seated". Of four stab wounds to his chest, the highest was immediately below the collar bone, entering the chest cavity to a depth of six and a quarter inches.
The track of the wound suggested the trajectory of the knife "was downwards and to the right". He said Mrs Doyle "may have held her arm over her heart at some stage", over the wounds "from where blood spurted out". There were a number of "defensive injuries". Evidence of alcohol consumption and cannabis traces were found in each of the bodies, but Dr Harbison told the court: "Cannabis is not regarded in any way a lethal drug."
He concluded that though alcohol intoxication may have lessened Mrs Doyle's ability to defend herself or run away, he did not consider that either the alcohol or the cannabis "directly contributed in any way to her death".
Dr Harbison told Mr Greg Murphy SC, for the defence, that the attack was "by no means" the most frenzied he had ever seen.
The trial continues today before Ms Justice McGuinness and the jury.