Richard Burke to be sentenced for Jasmine McMonagle manslaughter

‘Evil’ Richard Burke will be sentenced on Monday for the manslaughter of Jasmine McMonagle.

In March, a jury at the Central Criminal Courts returned a verdict of not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility.

Burke will now be sentenced on Monday by Mr Justice Paul Burns.

Burke (32), of Killygordon, had pleaded not guilty to the murder of Ms McMonagle at Forest Park, Killygordon on January 4, 2019 but guilty to manslaughter.

The jury of seven women and five men had been told by Mr Justice Burns that all the evidence in Burke's trial pointed to a manslaughter verdict and the jury took just over one hour to agree, in a unanimous decision.

The trial, sitting in Monaghan, heard from two psychiatrists who both agreed that Burke was suffering from a mental disorder at the time of the killing which substantially diminished his responsibility.

The trial heard Gardaí attended the house in Forest Park, Killygordon following a 999 call by Ms McMonagle at 4.21am stating that she was in fear for her life. The first officers on the scene were confronted by Burke brandishing a butcher-style meat cleaver which he swung at one of the members of the force, making contact with his clothing and narrowly missing his arm.

A garda went to the rear of the property shortly after 5am and saw Ms McMonagle's lifeless body lying in a pool of blood after he looked through a small gap in the curtains of a kitchen window.

A trained crisis negotiator was deployed at the scene and efforts to gain access to the house continued for some time before gardaí decided immediate and forced entry to the property was needed after Ms McMonagle’s young daughter was seen at a front bedroom window of the house.

Burke told investigating officers that he and Ms McMonagle had been fighting and he “went ballistic” after he discovered she had made a 999 call to gardaí for help.

“I have a real bad temper, I just blanked I went ballistic absolutely fucking ballistic,” Burke said. “Because I hate guards I just went ballistic, started punching the f**k out of her then strangling here with a rope. I was only trying to make her see sense.”

Asked how many times he had hit Ms McMonagle, the accused replied: “How long is a piece of string?”

The victim's mother Jacqueline McMonagle, said that when it came to Burke, "the only word that comes to mind is evil".

The also heard from Ms McMonagle’s young daughter, who was just eight years old when her mother was brutally beaten and strangled to death while she was also in the house. She said Richard Burke had “ruined our lives” and she and her little sister would “never get Mammy back”.

In a victim impact statement read to the court, the young girl said: “I wish mammy had never ever met him. He has ruined our lives and we can never get Mammy back.”

Sergeant Brendan McCann told Anne-Marie Lawlor SC that Burke has 23 previous convictions and include those for the possession of drugs, criminal damage, assault, various public order offences and possession of knives.