Mother of three was found dead in van
Court hears children were hungry and dehydrated
GARDAÍ found the body of a mother of three lying in the foetal position on the floor of a camper van with her bloodied hand protruding outside the sliding door and a child’s car seat over her face, a murder trial has heard.
A garda also told the Central Criminal Court jury yesterday that Valerie French Kilroy’s three children were found in their rural home hungry and ‘very dehydrated’.
One of the children requested Kellogg’s Coco Pops breakfast cereal, which the Garda witness went out to buy.
Park ranger James Kilroy, 49, with an address at Kilbree Lower, Westport, Co. Mayo, is charged with murdering occupational therapist Ms French Kilroy, 41, at their home between June 13 and 14, 2019. He has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.
A consultant psychiatrist from Mayo Mental Health Services, who assessed Mr Kilroy before Ms French Kilroy’s body was found, decided he should not be detained in the mental health unit as he didn’t meet the legal criteria for a mental disorder, the trial heard.
The accused told Dr Camilla Curtis that killing Ms French Kilroy ‘wasn’t part of the plan’ and said he had stabbed her in the throat using a kitchen knife. He also said he had no choice but to kill Ms French Kilroy as it was God’s choice.
Defence counsel Patrick Gageby has made several formal admissions to the court on behalf of his client, including that he killed his wife.
The trial has already heard that Mr Kilroy demonstrated to gardaí in an interview how he had killed his wife and at one point sketched the knife he had used.
Yesterday Garda Colm Boyle from Westport Garda Station told prosecution counsel Anne Marie Lawlor that he was told the accused had ‘made confessions’ to his colleague, Garda Leanne Nallen, on the afternoon of June 14 ‘that he had murdered his wife and kids’.
Garda Nallen testified yesterday that the accused man had made a ‘confession’ to her in Mayo General Hospital that day and stated, ‘I killed my wife and kids’.
Garda Boyle went with Sergeant Kieran McGinty to the Kilroy home where he found three very young and extremely distressed children crying very loudly. Garda Nallen was trying to comfort them and make them feel at ease.
‘With the information we had received there was a possibility of three or four bodies. Obviously when we saw the children were okay our attention focused on the whereabouts of Ms French Kilroy,’ Garda Boyle said.
The witness said he went into one of the children’s bedrooms but could find nobody there or in the next bedroom. Garda Boyle went to the downstairs bathroom after he was informed about blood splatter there. Gardaí quickly ascertained that Ms French Kilroy was not in the house, he said.
Garda Boyle went to the farmyard where he found a green old-style camper van in a shed.
‘A wooden-type chair was blocking my path so I walked around the front of the vehicle. When I walked I could see a hand hanging out the sliding door. It had three rings on the ring finger and a gash to the wrist,’ he said.
The body was that of Ms French Kilroy and she was lying on her left side with her knees bent forward to her chest. ‘I couldn’t see her face as a [child’s] car seat was placed over it,’ Garda Boyle said.
He alerted Sergeant McGinty, and he agreed with Ms Lawlor that it was immediately apparent it had been a violent death.
Garda Boyle said the three children were very dehydrated and he was informed by his colleagues that there was no food in the house. The witness went to the local fuel station to buy Coco Pops which one of the children had requested as well as milk, fizzy drinks and chocolate.
Earlier, Dr Curtis from Mayo Mental Health Services told Ms Lawlor she assessed the accused on June 14 at Mayo University Hospital.
Dr Curtis said the purpose of her examination of the accused was to determine if he fulfilled the criteria under the Mental Health Act to be admitted as an involuntary mental health patient. She said Mr Kilroy did not meet the criteria.
The trial continues before Judge Mary Ellen Ring and a jury of ten men and two women.
‘I couldn’t see her face’