LAST UPDATE | 28 Sep 2021
A KENYAN WOMAN who has pleaded not guilty to murder by reason of insanity told gardaí that she killed a man to “protect Prince William” and cut off his genitals after death “to protect women”.
After prosecution counsel noted a juror “in difficulty” during opening speeches, the trial judge asked jurors to remind him if any issues arise about the evidence, which he described as “not the norm”.
Grace Miano (53) is charged with the murder of Malawian man Limbani ‘Robert’ Mzoma (27) at Tudor Lawns in Foxrock, Co Dublin, on 1 November 2018.
Miano, who is also known as ‘Margaret Sloane’, told the court yesterday that she was pleading “not guilty by reason of insanity”.
In outlining the case to the jury this morning, prosecution counsel James B Dwyer SC said they could return a “special verdict” of not guilty by insanity under Section 5 of the Criminal Law (Insanity) act.
Dwyer said that verdict can be returned in cases where the jury finds that the accused has committed the act for which they are on trial and has also heard evidence in the case from a consultant psychologist.
He said it is the defence’s case that Miano suffers a “schizoaffective” disorder, that she did not know her actions were wrong and that she was unable to refrain from her actions at the time. Dwyer told the jury that the vast majority of the case had been agreed upon by prosecution and defence.
This afternoon at the Central Criminal Court, Chief State Pathologist Dr Linda Mulligan told Elva Duffy BL, also for the prosecution, that she conducted a post mortem examination of Mzoma at the Dublin City Mortuary on 2 November 2018.
Dr Mulligan said that Mzoma sustained 63 external wounds comprised of stabbing injuries, blunt-force trauma, lacerations and abrasions.
Dr Mulligan said that she concluded that Mzoma’s cause of death was primarily due to a blunt-force trauma injury and a stabbing injury to the top and rear of the head, which caused a complex skull fracture and bleeding in the brain. She said that the blunt force trauma could be consistent with a broken poker recovered from the sitting room or with the fat end of an axe found in the back garden.
A contributory factor to Mzoma’s death was internal bleeding caused by broken ribs to the lower back, she said.
She said that a large triangular wound, measuring 18cm by 17cm, that severed the genitalia had no vital reactions associated with it. Dr Mulligan agreed with Duffy that the injury was inflicted after death.
Two other stab wounds to the neck were also inflicted post-mortem, said Dr Mulligan.
Mzoma also suffered injuries to his face, ears, limbs, neck, hands and to his anterior and posterior torso, she said.
Dr Mulligan said that a toxicology report showed an alcohol/blood level was recorded at 259mg per 100ml of blood. She said that this was “not enough to cause unconsciousness” but was a “moderate to severe level of acute intoxication”.
Detective Sergeant Paul Curran told Dwyer that photographs taken at the scene showed blood on the floor, door, fireplace, light-switch and ceiling of the sitting room.
Former Detective Sergeant Colm Ó Giolláin told Dwyer that two males had gone to the house at around 11pm on the night. They told gardaí that Miano had said the deceased was in the sitting room.
Ó Giolláin said one of the males said that Miano told him: “I put a drip in your friend, I’m a good doctor.”
The accused then urged the male to go into the sitting room, where she said Mzoma was in a “Halloween costume”.
A second male told the detective that he saw blood on her arm, that she was holding a knife and that she was speaking “gibberish”.
The detective said the two men then left the house to raise the alarm and met a neighbour who was on his way to the house to ask that “chanting” noises be kept down.
Ó Giolláin said that Miano was interviewed four times at Dun Laoghaire Garda Station in the course of the Garda investigation.
Ó Giolláin said that, in her statement to gardaí of the events of the night, Miano said she had planned to get Mzoma drunk and had grabbed a poker and struck him multiple times.
“It [the poker] was the only thing I could see. He just wouldn’t die. I hit him with a knife to protect myself and all women,” Miano told gardaí. She alleged that Mzoma beat and forced himself on her and that she was “relieved he was dead so he can’t abuse anyone anymore”.
When the statement was read back to her by gardaí, Miano said: “I did it to protect Prince William and myself”.
Miano alleged that on the night Mzoma wanted to rape her in front of other people and alleged that he had previously been violent towards her and spiked her drink.
Ó Giolláin said the accused said that she did not feel well on the night and that she went for a walk because she said she was “not of full intelligence”. However, he said CCTV could not confirm her claim.
The accused said in her interviews that she left the house when Mzoma was sitting in a chair in the sitting room unconscious and that foam was coming out of his mouth. She said a number of other males were also in the house drinking but she did not know how many.
Miano told gardaí that when she returned to the house the men were still there and told her, pointing to an unmoving Mzoma, “there is your abuser”. She told gardaí that the males ordered her to “finish off” the deceased as it was “the only way to be safe”.
“They said that ‘if he wakes he will kill you’,” she told gardaí.
The accused told gardaí that she struck the deceased on the leg with a poker and thought he was already “not alive”.
Miano also alleged in her interview that Mzoma knew about her “secret fiancé” from living in the house and that he told her he was recruited by a woman to kill her fiancé.
She told gardaí that she touched Mzoma’s “willy with the stick and thought ‘this is the thing that has been raping me”. She told gardaí that she chopped off Mzoma’s genitals with a knife after “losing all normality” due to the alleged “rape, threats and beatings”.
Miano said in her statement that she originally tried to remove the genitals with a “potato knife” but returned to the sitting room with a large breadknife.
During one interview with gardaí, Miano wrote out a document describing a vision from god and told interviewers that she “did not kill Jesus”.
“I seen a vision of green grass and a cave and Jesus came out of a hole with his hands up, that’s why I say I didn’t kill Jesus,” she said in interview.
Ó Giolláin said that Miano was tested for 43 types of drug after her claims that a Fanta she was drinking on the night was spiked but all tests returned a negative result.
The trial continues before Mr Justice Paul McDermott and a jury of five women and seven men.
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