A 32-YEAR-OLD MAN who is accused of murdering three members of his family at their Co Louth home last year told gardaí that he had stabbed his younger special needs brother like a “blood bag”, a Central Criminal Court jury has heard.

The jurors were also told they will hear evidence that the three victims sustained a combined 139 stab wounds.

Roisin Lacey SC, for the Director of Public Prosecutions, said in her opening speech today that the accused Robert O’Connor told gardaí that he had a row over drugs, lost his head and only meant to kill his father and brother, but not his mother.

When re-arraigned before the Central Criminal Court this afternoon, Robert O’Connor, of Drumgowna, Louth Village, Dundalk, Co Louth, pleaded not guilty of murder by reason of insanity or guilty of manslaughter on the basis of diminished responsibility to the triple murder of his mother Louise O’Connor (56), his father Mark O’Connor (54) and his younger brother Evan O’Connor (27) at their home in Drumgowna between 28 and 29 September 2025, both dates inclusive.

Opening the prosecution’s case, Lacey said the accused Robert O’Connor accepts he caused the death of the three victims in the case.

Counsel said the deaths of the three victims occurred sometime between Sunday 28 September and Monday 29 September but that the actual times of their deaths were not entirely clear.

Referring to the accused man’s younger brother Evan O’Connor, Lacey said he had very significant special needs, was severely autistic and had learning difficulties. She said Evan was supported by a charitable organisation, who provided learning and living support.

Counsel said a carer had arrived at Drumgowna at 9.30am on the morning of 29 September. “Just before the carer reversed in on the Monday, she saw something and thought it looked like a Halloween decoration of some kind inside the gate,” said the barrister.

The lawyer said the carer waited for Evan and when he didn’t come out, she thought this was unusual. She said the carer got out of the car and walked back towards the gate, where she saw the “heavily blood-stained body” of Mark O’Connor inside the front gate of the house.

When the carer looked across at the house, she saw Evan’s body lying across the step of the patio door with blood on the bottom of his legs.

Lacey said the jury will hear that the carer got back into the car and drove to a neighbour’s house, where she called 999 at 9.38am that morning. Gardaí and members of the armed support unit arrived at Drumgowna later that morning.

Lacey said the evidence will be that beside Mark O’Connor’s body was a beer bottle, an orange kitchen knife and a butter knife.

The lawyer told the jurors that when gardaí entered the house sometime later, they observed Louise O’Connor’s body “equally heavily bloodstained” on the kitchen floor.

She said a local doctor arrived sometime later and pronounced each of the three victims dead.

The court will also hear evidence, the lawyer said, that gardaí took statements from various individuals who had heard something the night before, or had encountered the accused man on the morning of 29 September.

Counsel said the jury would hear evidence from a neighbour, who will say that he recognised the accused man’s voice coming from the O’Connor household on the night of 28 September saying: “I’ll end you, I’ll fu*king end you”.

Counsel told the panel that the same neighbour saw the accused man at his gate on the morning of 29 September. Lacey said the witness will say that Robert O’Connor was “agitated, which was not unusual” and that the accused told him: “I’m sorry about the noise last night, where do we go now?”

Another neighbour heard the accused man shouting and cursing around 8.30pm on the evening of 28 September.

There will be evidence from another neighbour, Lacey said, who described a strange noise like a “horse kind of noise” but recognised it as a male voice. Around 8.45pm on 28 September, the same neighbour saw a male figure in the middle of the back garden of Drumgowna, jumping up and down in the air.

The lawyer said this neighbour’s wife had sent a Facebook message to Louise O’Connor that evening asking her if everything was alright, but didn’t receive any response back.

The prosecution barrister went on to tell the court that a woman had gone to the front of her house around 9.45am on the morning of 29 September when she saw a shadow pass across her window. When the woman opened the door, Robert O’Connor was there and he apologised to her, saying he didn’t want to frighten her.

Lacey said the evidence will be that the accused said: “I can’t put it into words, it’s all muddled in my head, they tortured me for years, my family, they manipulated me for years.”

Counsel said the accused asked could he come into her house as he wanted “to charge” but she refused. When the woman asked the accused what happened, Robert O’Connor said “I killed them”.

When the woman asked him whether the sirens were for him, the accused man said “yes”. Lacey said the woman found the accused level-headed and not aggressive in any way before he headed off in the direction of Tallanstown. The woman rang 999 at 10.04am that morning.

There will be evidence, Lacey said, that gardaí had observed the accused on foot walking in the direction of Tallanstown that morning. When they stopped the accused, he was highly aggressive and agitated and shouted at them: “I’m looking for ye”.

When gardaí asked the accused to show them his hands, he refused and shouted: “Shoot me, shoot me.” The accused’s hands were blood-stained at the time, the court heard.

Lacey said that when the accused was arrested on suspicion of killing his parents and brother, he told gardaí: “I killed them; I killed my mother, father and my brother.”

The accused man also told detectives: “I slashed my mother, she gave me a look and I could see a reflection of my dad in her face.”

Robert O’Connor said his father Mark was behind his mother and he had killed him next and then his brother.

When asked why he had killed three members of his family, counsel said that Robert O’Connor told gardaí he had a row over drugs, only meant to kill his father and brother but not his mother and had “lost my head”.

The accused man also told gardaí he had stabbed his brother Evan like a “blood bag”.

Lacey said when the accused was in the back of a garda car, he said he was “not sorry for his father or brother” but was sorry for stabbing his mother to death. The accused said he had stabbed his mother in the forehead in the sitting room following an argument.

The accused added: “I stabbed my father with a kitchen knife from a block of five knives. I left when I stabbed my father and mother. I went back for my brother and stabbed him. I stabbed him like a blood bag”.

Counsel said the jury would hear that the accused told gardaí he had been using cocaine lately and had bought some ‘Wildcat’; which counsel said is a slang word for mephedrone and is an amphetamine. She said it was a synthetic drug and the effect on the body was similar to cocaine.

Lacey said the evidence will be the accused told gardaí that his parents had wanted to speak to him about his drug consumption but Robert O’Connor had told them he did not want to stop taking cocaine.

The accused also told detectives in Drogheda Garda Station that he had gone upstairs to take cocaine and watch pornography on the evening of 28 September. When the accused went back downstairs, the three others were in the sitting room and Robert told gardaí he “went for a knife”.

The accused said he was angry and asked his mother why she did not feel empathy. He said he first slashed his mother on the head with a kitchen knife and made the three of them stand with their heads down. The accused said his mother ran for the door and that his father had started to charge to the door.

The defendant said he “stabbed them multiple times and accepted he had killed them”.

Counsel said the accused also told gardaí that the “algorithm on Evan’s iPad” was affecting his reality. “I kept asking him was he the programmer,” the accused said.

When interviewed by gardaí, the accused said he had a feeling some of the drugs he took earlier had affected him.

Robert O’Connor told gardaí he was running around the garden with a wheelbarrow full of water and had done pull-ups in the garden. He said he had taken the three deceased outside and “had to throw them out to see who got into heaven”.

Counsel said the accused also told gardaí he had used a knife and didn’t remember leaving it in a log cabin.

Counsel said the jury would hear that Mark O’Connor had 44 stab wounds, with nine of those to his head; that Louise O’Connor suffered 20 stab wounds, with eight to her trunk, while Evan O’Connor had 75 stab wounds, with 25 of those to his head and neck.

Counsel said a pathologist will say Evan was alive when the vast majority of his wounds were sustained.

Lacey will continue her opening speech on Friday before Judge Mícheál P O’Higgins and a jury of six men and six women. The trial is expected to last until 30 October.