LAST UPDATE | 24 Nov 2025

A JURY HAS unanimously convicted a Kerry man of murdering his 75-year-old mother, rejecting his claim that he should be found not guilty by reason of insanity having strangled her to death at her home three years ago while suffering a manic episode related to bipolar disorder.

The jury accepted the prosecution’s case that the cause of 55-year-old Billy Burns killing his mother Miriam Burns was not mental illness but his “long-term abuse of drugs and alcohol” and anger towards his mother. The trial heard that Burns had been aggressive and violent towards his mother since he was a teenager and on one occasion broke his mother’s jaw.

Following today’s verdict, Ms Justice Karen O’Connor, who presided in the trial, adjourned the matter to this Friday when Burns faces the mandatory sentence of life imprisonment. Members of the Burns family will be invited to make statements to the court.

During the one-week trial at the Central Criminal Court, two psychiatrists differed on whether Billy Burns qualified for a special verdict of not guilty of murder by reason of insanity.

Burns’ treating psychiatrist Dr Eugene Morgan, who was called by the defence, told the trial that the defendant was suffering from hypomania due to bipolar affective disorder and met the criteria for the special verdict.

Dr Stephen Monks, a consultant psychiatrist at the Central Mental Hospital, said that despite Burns’s mental illness, he understood the nature and quality of his actions when killing his mother, knew it was wrong and was able to refrain from the killing.

The jury of eight men and four women at the Central Criminal Court took six hours and eight minutes to reject Billy Burns’ plea of not guilty by reason of insanity.

Miriam Burns (75), was found dead at her home at Ardshanavooley, Killarney, Co Kerry on 15 August, 2022, when her other family members asked neighbours to check on her.

The prosecution alleged that Burns (55), who had pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, inflicted the fatal injuries on August 12 or 13. A pathologist’s report showed that she died from manual strangulation associated with blunt force trauma to the head.

Following today’s verdict, Ms Justice Karen O’Connor thanked the jury for their service and exempted them from jury duty for five years. She also spoke of the “incredible integrity” the Burns family showed throughout the trial and noted the insight the court had received into their “gorgeous mother”.

She added: “You have honoured her as the wonderful person she was and you should be proud of how you have conducted yourselves.”

Billy Burns, who has been in custody throughout the trial, was taken to the cell area by prison officers.

During his trial, State Pathologist Dr Margaret Bolster described injuries to Ms Burns’s face, neck, back and legs that were consistent with multiple blows, manual strangulation and possible suffocation.

Miriam’s sister, Helen O’Leary, told the trial that three weeks before she was killed, she told her sister to let her son go, but the deceased “didn’t want to hear it”.

Ms O’Leary called her sister Miriam “a saint with what Billy put her through for years”.

In closing speeches, the prosecution asked the jury to consider whether Burns was attempting to “pull the wool” over their eyes by pretending he was suffering from psychosis to secure a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity.

Sean Guerin SC alongside Ronan Prendergast BL, prosecuting, said the defendant’s history of aggressive and abusive behaviour towards his mother was not explained by psychiatric illness. Mr Guerin suggested that the real cause of Burns’s violence on the day he killed his mother was his abuse of drugs and alcohol in the lead-up to the killing and that he was annoyed.

Mr Guerin said comments made by the accused to psychiatrist Dr Mary Davoren, in which he complained of being ‘framed’ for his mother’s killing, showed that he “fully understood what murder was, what killing another human was and that it was wrong”.

Counsel said further evidence of Burns’ level of understanding could be gleaned from his denial to gardai of any involvement in his mother’s killing and lies he told about his movements on the day.

Anthony Sammon SC, for the defence, said that the consultant psychiatrist called by the prosecution had not effectively countered the opinion given by Dr Morgan that the defendant was so mentally unwell when he killed his mother that he did not understand what he was doing, did not know it was wrong and was unable to refrain.

There were four verdicts the jury panel could return in relation to the murder charge against Burns namely; guilty of murder; not guilty by reason of insanity; not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility or not guilty.

In her charge, Ms Justice Karen O’Connor said to simply find Burns not guilty of murder would be at “complete variance” with all the evidence as he had admitted killing his mother. “You heard the details of the brutal way this woman met her death so it would be completely at odds with that,” she said.

Murder, the jury heard, is an unlawful killing where the accused intended to kill or cause serious injury.

‘Got the brunt of it’

Sharon Kelleher, the defendant’s eldest sibling, told the prosecutor that she had a “beautiful childhood until Billy was about 15 and started taking drugs”.

Ms Kelleher said her brother could be erratic due to his mental health issues and drug use and would be verbally abusive towards their mother. She recalled him saying he would put their mother “in the ground” and then telling her he loved her.

On 12 August 2022, Ms Burns texted her daughter to say that Billy had called to the house and was “in a bad way”. Ms Kelleher rang her mother, who described Billy as unrecognisable and ‘psychotic’. She was upset and worried about Billy, Ms Kelleher said.

Ms Kelleher advised her mother to lock the doors, to speak to gardaí and not to let Billy back in. When she didn’t hear from her mother again over the next two days, she presumed everything was fine. Billy’s usual pattern would be that once he had been “fed and watered” and got some money, he would go away, Ms Kelleher said.

Ms Kelleher told the trial that their mother knew from experience that Billy could be dangerous, but she always tried to help him. She said her mother “got the brunt of it” when Billy was coming down off drugs.

“She never did anything to bring that on,” Ms Kelleher said. “All she did was try to help.”

Ms Kelleher said it never in her “wildest dreams” occurred to her that Billy could cause their mother’s death.

‘Always angry’

Shane Burns told prosecutor Mr Guerin that he was Billy’s younger brother by five years. As a child, he lived in fear of Billy, who he said was “always angry”.

His anger was mainly towards their mother, who raised her four children alone, but if anyone else tried to interfere, they would “get it” from Billy, he said.

Shane Burns recalled Billy scalding their older sister Sharon with an iron because she told Billy to “calm down” during an argument with their mother.

As he got older, Billy became more aggressive, the witness said, and he would often steal money or cigarettes from their mother’s purse. Although Shane said he never saw Billy strike their mother, he did see him push or restrain her. At times he saw his mother was bruised but she would say she had fallen.

Billy would call their mother a “whore and a slut” to her face and spread stories about her, Shane said. When Shane heard that Billy had broken their mother’s jaw in 1993, Shane encouraged her to make a formal complaint but she refused.

In the months before her death, Ms Burns was worried about Billy because he had been missing for some time and she didn’t know where he was living, the witness said.

On 15 August, 2022, Mr Burns said he and Sharon became concerned that they hadn’t heard from their mother over the weekend. They called neighbours who used a spare key to enter the house and found Ms Burns dead in the sitting room.

‘A few joints’

Inspector John Kelly of the Kerry Garda Division told Mr Guerin that gardaí arrested Billy Burns on 16 August, 2022 and interviewed him at Killarney Garda Station.

Burns confirmed to gardaí that he had been in his mother’s house on the Friday night before she died. He said he arrived in the late evening and she made him a sandwich and told him he could stay the night.

She went to bed shortly after he arrived, he said, while he smoked “a few joints” downstairs. Burns told gardaí that he had sourced drugs, including crack cocaine, in Dublin before coming to Killarney. He had another source for drugs in Killarney, he said.

The following morning, Burns told detectives he had a cup of tea, went to his mother’s bedroom to give her a kiss and a hug and left between 10 and 11am. Inspector Kelly said gardai were unable to find evidence that Burns had left his mother’s house that morning and neighbours said they saw him in the house up to the mid-afternoon.

CCTV did show Burns cycling away from his mother’s home at 7:28pm that evening with a rucksack on his back towards Ross Castle.

‘I didn’t kill the bitch’

Garda forensic teams found the remnants of four fires in the Ross Castle area that had been started by Burns, Inspector Kelly said. Among the ashes of one fire, they found a small piece of fabric that matched the bloodstained night slip that Ms Burns had been wearing when she died.

At a nearby house, gardaí discovered the rucksack and a bag that Burns identified as his own. In the rucksack was a cushion with blood-staining that matched Ms Burns’s DNA, the inspector said.

Burns also confirmed to gardaí that in 1993, he had broken his mother’s jaw, saying variously that he closed a door on her or that he punched her. He said she needed a wire in her jaw and he felt bad.

When asked about allegations that he had killed his mother, he replied: “I didn’t kill the bitch.”

The defendant told gardaí that when he first called to his mother’s home on 12 August, he argued with her about money. When gardaí asked if a neighbour was correct in saying he saw Burns slamming the door as he left and calling his mother a “‘f**cking c**t”, the defendant said: “Probably yeah.”

Throughout his interviews on 16 August and following his rearrest in February 2023, Inspector Kelly said Burns denied any involvement in his mother’s killing.

Mania

Dr Eugene Morgan told defence barrister, Anthony Sammon SC, that he is a consultant psychiatrist with 50 years of experience. He saw Burns 11 days after the alleged offence, when he was on remand in Cork Prison. Dr Morgan found Burns to be hypomanic and his condition deteriorated to mania over the following days. Dr Morgan agreed with a diagnosis that Burns had bipolar affective disorder.

Dr Morgan said he was satisfied Burns was suffering from a relapse of bipolar affective disorder secondary to poor compliance with medication and illicit substance misuse when he assaulted his mother.

Dr Morgan said he was further satisfied that due to his mental illness, Burns did not know the nature and quality of his actions, was unable to determine whether his actions were wrong and was likely unable to refrain from his actions. He said Burns met the criteria under the Criminal Law (Insanity) Act 2006 for a special verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity.

Under cross-examination, Dr Morgan confirmed to Mr Guerin, prosecuting, that he never asked Burns about the alleged killing of his mother. Dr Morgan said that he had not asked the accused about his mother’s killing because he didn’t want to be put in a position where he might have to give evidence against him in court.

Dr Morgan said he could not offer “certainty” about the defendant’s mental state at the time of the killing, because he wasn’t there. However, he said he based his findings on how Burns appeared eleven days after the killing and from reading transcripts of the interviews he gave to gardaí following his arrest three to four days after the killing. He accepted that he did not look at videos of Burns’s garda interviews.

Dr Morgan said he would have to consider that drug and alcohol use contributed to Burns’s behaviour but the “major factor” was his illness. Dr Morgan accepted that drug and alcohol use “may have been the cause of the relapse in his mental state”.

Dr Stephen Monks, a consultant psychiatrist called by the prosecution, did ask Burns about the killing and viewed the videos of his interview. Those facts, Mr Guerin said in his closing address: “Add significant value and weight that are not available to support the opinion of Dr Morgan.”

Bingeing on alcohol

Dr Monks told Mr Guerin that in his report, he referred to statements in the book of evidence, Burns’s history of psychiatric treatment going back to 1991 and videos of his interviews with gardai and his own interviews with the defendant.

Dr Monks said Burns told him that in the week before his mother’s death, he had been bingeing on alcohol and smoking cannabis and crack cocaine. His drug use, Dr Monks said, likely caused a relapse or worsened the symptoms of bipolar disorder.

It is also likely that Burns was not just manic at the time of the killing, but also intoxicated, the witness said.

Dr Monks said the defendant told him he was hearing voices in his head telling him to kill his mother. However, the doctor said there was no record in Burns’s previous history of auditory hallucination and he had not told anyone else about hearing voices. Dr Monks said this put limitations on the weight he could give to the account of hearing voices.

On balance, Dr Monks found that Burns was more likely not psychotic at the time he killed his mother although he was suffering mania or hypomania with intoxication. Notwithstanding his manic symptoms, he understood the nature and quality of his actions and knew that it was wrong to assault his mother, Dr Monks said.

In his garda interviews, Burns clearly understood that he was being questioned about killing his mother and denied killing her, said Dr Monks. The mania Burns was suffering would have lowered his threshold for impulsive aggression, Dr Monks said. However, mania would not be sufficient to remove his ability to refrain from killing his mother.

Dr Monks also found that mental illness did not explain Burns’s previous acts of aggression towards his mother over many years that were detailed in the book of evidence and in his psychiatric history.

Dr Monks concluded that in his opinion, the presence of mania did not support a special verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity.