Chapter 24: The Trial
JJ Muggivan
In his testimony, Brendan O’Donnell told the court that he had started a relationship with Imelda Riney in about April 1994. He said that although he was happy about this, he was ‘very depressed’ and hearing voices. He admitted that on the morning of Friday 29 April, he had broken into Edward Jameson’s house. He said that when he had found no money there, he had taken a gun and a container of bullets, as he intended to rob Whitegate post office. He was hoping to get cash to go to France to live, and he told the court that Imelda was going to get hima passport.
Brendan testified that he walked across the fields to the house where Imelda was living. He said that he had the gun and ammunition with him and he fired at trees along the way. He said that when he arrived at the house at about 10.40 in the morning, he saw Imelda’s car, but not the car of Val Ballance, her estranged husband. He went into the house.
According to Brendan, he met Imelda who was putting blue Wellington boots on her son. She questioned him about the gun and he told her that he had got it ‘from Mr Jameson’. Brendan said that Imelda did not want the gun near her child, so he put it outside. He then returned inside, where Imelda put the kettle on to make tea.
Brendan’s testimony was that he and Imelda then went upstairs and had sex, after which Liam Riney came up and made a remark. It should be noted that Imelda’s family have always said that she would never have consented to sex with Brendan O’Donnell, and that she was not in a relationship with him. Mr MacEntee and Kevin Haugh SC, noting that semen was discovered in the body, stipulated that if the semen was examined it would be found to have been Brendan’s. The examination of the body and the crime scene does not support a theory of violent rape occurring immediately prior to the killings. However, the absence of signs of a physically violent rape either at Imelda’s house or at the crime scene does not justify a conclusion that what happened was not rape. Imelda Riney was not in a position at any time after meeting Brendan that morning to reject any demand or request made by him.
I believe that Brendan’s testimony that ‘Imelda put the kettle on to make tea’ is, more or less, the starting point of embellishment and fabrication to persuade the jury of his insanity.
Brendan went on to tell the court that Imelda had just gone downstairs when:
I heard a voice from the devil telling me to kill Imelda, that she was the devil’s daughter.
He said that he went down and told her that he would have to kill her because she was the devil’s daughter, to which she replied, ‘Don’t be raving, Brendan.’ He said that Imelda did not seem upset, so ‘I went and got the gun and I pointed it at her and then she took me serious.’
Brendan then told Imelda to come with him. She was now holding Liam who was frightened. The gun was loaded. Brendan was asked how he was feeling at that point, and he replied, ‘I don’t know how to describe how I was feeling.’
Brendan got into the back of Imelda’s car with Liam, and instructed Imelda to drive her car to Cregg Wood. He told the court, ‘That’s where I wanted to kill her. I decided to kill her when I heard the voice say she was the devil’s daughter.’
Asked whether he and Imelda had talked during the drive, Brendan said that he could not remember. ‘I was feeling very happy,’ he said. ‘Because I was going to kill the devil’s daughter.’ He said that Imelda was ‘very nervous’ when they got out of the car, but he could not remember if she had said anything. Liam was ‘very nervous’.
‘Me, I was happy,’ Brendan told the court. ‘I said, ‘Imelda, lie down on the ground. I’m going to shoot you”’
‘She tried to pull the gun off me,’ he continued. ‘Imelda grabbed the barrel with her fists,’
Brendan’s testimony went on:
She pulled the gun. I pulled the trigger and I shot her in the eye and blood started squirting into the air. I wanted to kill her because she was the devil’s daughter, because the devil told me to do it. I felt very happy, a lovely feeling.
According to the testimony Liam was sitting on the ground about 20 yards away and did not see when his mother was shot ‘because of the trees’. He asked Brendan, ‘Where’s Mammy?’
Brendan told the court that he had been left without his own mother, and he did not want to leave Liam in the same situation. He brought the child over to his mother’s body. ‘I wanted them to be together,’ he said. Unable to look at the child because of his ‘innocent face’, Brendan shot him in the side of the head.
At that point, according to Brendan, ‘I felt happy he wasn’t growing up without his mother.’
Brendan had been in court when Dr Charles Smith had testified against his insanity plea. Dr Smith had explained the necessity of ‘voice commands from a psychotic disorder’ in order to justify an insanity plea. Did Brendan pick up on this and supply the symptoms Dr Smith had said should be present in order to prove insanity?
The prosecution made the argument that Brendan had been stalking Imelda Riney throughout April 1994, and that he did not have any close contact with her until 29 April 1994. Under cross examination by Kevin Haugh SC, Brendan denied this, saying that he had known Imelda from 1991 or 1992. ‘I wasn’t watching her,’ he said.
According to Brendan’s testimony, following his release from prison in Wolverhampton in March 1994, he had spent three days in different parts of Ireland before returning to County Clare.
He said that he was familiar with Imelda’s house as he himself had previously used it as a place to stay, and that IRA people on the run had also used it. He was surprised to find that it had been renovated and he visited about ten or twelve times before Val Ballance came on holiday in April 1994. He said that he continued to go there ever couple days and visited four or five times during Val Ballance’s stay.
Brendan told the court that Oisin Riney attended Coolinbridge school. When informed by counsel that the school had been closed for repairs from 31 March to 19 April, Brendan replied that Imelda had told him that her son was at school. Counsel then told Brendan that Imelda’s sister, Marie, had been staying with Imelda from 22 April, but Brendan denied this, saying that he had been at the house and that he had never seen her there.
According to Brendan’s testimony, Imelda used to bring him a flask of tea and ham or salad sandwiches. Asked whether Imelda ate the ham sandwiches, he replied, ‘She used to eat ham, yes.’
However, Imelda was a strict vegetarian who did not herself eat meat, poultry or fish and would not have had ham in the house.
Prosecution counsel Kevin Haugh said to Brendan: ‘You are deliberately lying and were never around Imelda Riney’s house before April 29, 1994,
Brendan replied, ‘I’m not lying,’
In his testimony regarding the killing of Fr Joseph Walsh, Brendan told the court that he had eaten dinner at his grandmother’s house on Tuesday 3 May and had left at about five o’clock. He said that the guards were looking for him about a robbery and the stabbing of his sister.
Brendan said that he slept that night in a hayshed near the village of Eyrecourt, and that when he was walking through the fields towards the village, he heard the devil’s voice saying to him, ‘Kill Father Joe. He’s trying to christen the devil’s son.’ He did not know who the son was, but the christening was to be the following day.
It was raining, and Brendan waited outside Fr Walsh’s house for about three hours. He managed to get halfway through the bathroom window but did not bother going inside.
Brendan said that he knew the priest ‘fairly well’. When Fr Walsh arrived, Brendan told him to drive to Portumna. He said that he told the priest that he was going to kill him.
Fr Walsh drove Brendan to Cregg Wood but the gates were locked. They then proceeded to Cregg House. Brendan said that the priest told him ‘that I was sick, that he knew my granny well and Ishouldn’t shoot him that he was not going to christen the devil’s son.’ He promised to give him money to go to England, but ‘I said, “I’m going to kill you.” I said, “You are trying to christen the devil’s baby son and I’m gong to shoot you.”
Brendan testified that he and Fr Walsh stayed in Cregg House until seven o’clock the following morning. He smiled as he said that the birds were singing at that time. He told the court that the priest gave him thirty pounds and a valuable gold watch that had been a present from his sister. According to Brendan, Fr Walsh told him that he could sell the watch.
Fr Walsh drove back to Cregg Wood with Brendan. The curate said that he would withdraw money for Brendan from the bank in Banagher and asked to be let go. When they arrived at a clearing in the forest, Brendan told the priest to kneel down, so that he would not fall and ‘get hurt’. Fr Walsh said to him, ‘If you shoot me, will you see that I’m buried in the diocese I served in?’ Asked what his reply to this had been, Brendan said, ‘I said I wouldn’t because he was trying to christen the devil’s baby son.’ Brendan testified that the priest knelt down and ‘I shot him in the head.’
Fr Walsh went into convulsions, Brendan said, so he shot him again in the back of the head ‘so he wouldn't go through any pain’.
Brendan told the court that he ‘felt happy after’ the killing. ‘I had killed a man who was trying to christen the devil’s baby son,’ he said.
Laughing, Brendan testified that after he had shot Fr Walsh, the priest’s ‘brains came out’. Brendan then ‘felt happy’ as he drove to Limerick
On his arrival in Limerick, Brendan had a meal at a restaurant but vomited in the street afterwards. He said that he saw people in Limerick laughing at him. He drove around for a few days after that.
Asked what the devil looked like, Brendan said, ‘He is about 8 feet tall, and he has evil green cat’s eyes, and he has hooves — not feet — and he smokes a pipe.’