LAST UPDATE | 6 Mar 2025

FORMER LOVERS ALAN Vial and Nikita Burns have both been found guilty of murdering 66-year-old Robert ‘Robin’ Wilkin, whose body was thrown over the cliffs at Sliabh Liag, one of Donegal’s most popular tourist attractions.

The jury of seven women and five men at the Central Criminal Court this afternoon returned their majority, ten to two, verdicts in respect of each accused.

Nikita Burns wept as prison officers took her from the court to the cell area while Vial chatted with members of his legal team.

Both will be sentenced to the mandatory term of life imprisonment at a sentencing hearing tomorrow when members of the victim’s family will be invited to make a statement to the court.

The trial heard that Vial, who was described by the prosecution as a “devious, calculated, cynical liar”, had told gardai that the discovery of Wilkin’s body in the sea below the cliffs was “a bit sad”.

He added: “Ironically, he always wanted to be buried at sea, he was a skipper of a boat at one stage.”

Vial (39), from Drumanoo Head, Killybegs and Burns (23), of Carrick, Co Donegal had pleaded not guilty to Wilkin’s murder in Donegal on June 25, 2023.

The jury heard that Wilkin suffered at least two depressed fractures to the head before he was put over Sliabh Liag, one of Ireland’s most outstanding tourist attractions and some of the tallest cliffs in Europe.

The Irish Coastguard recovered his body from the sea eight days later. Due to predator damage and decomposition, State Pathologist Dr Margaret Bolster was unable to identify a cause of death.

She also noted multiple fractures to the face but could not say which were caused by the fall over the cliff and which by a prior assault.

However, the two fractures to the back of the head were not consistent with the fall down the cliff and were “entirely consistent” with having been caused by a bloody rock found by gardai at the top of the cliffs.

DNA testing showed that the blood on the rock and hairs that were clinging to it belonged to Robin Wilkin.

Each accused claimed that the other used the rock to beat Wilkin about the head before he was put over the cliffs at Sliabh Liag.

The prosecution, however, alleged that they were part of a joint enterprise to cause serious injury to Wilkin and are therefore both guilty of murder.

On the day after the killing, Alan Vial was arrested for drunk driving when he crashed his car into a ditch at Finntown, near Glenties. Garda Aaron Meenaghan noticed that there was blood on the interior roof of the car and cleaning products in the back and alerted detectives in Letterkenny.

Nikita Burns was taken to Letterkenny Hospital for treatment arising out of the crash but was discharged a short time later.

She walked to her friend Chris Quinn’s house and made a number of admissions, including that she had “battered” a man with a rock “until his face was out the back of his head”.

Quinn recalled Burns saying that she “liked doing it”.

Another witness, Sharon O’Dowd spoke to Burns on the phone and recorded her making similar admissions.

Burns also told O’Dowd that the body would not be found but she was concerned that they might get caught because of the blood in the car. “If I go down for it, I go down,” she said.

After Burns was arrested on suspicion of murder, she resiled from those comments and claimed it was Vial who had beaten Wilkin’s head six or seven times with the rock. She denied having any part in the assault or in putting Wilkin over the cliff.

Vial made no admissions in his garda interviews, telling detectives he had a fight with Wilkin at Sliabh Liag.

He said he “winded” the pensioner by striking him in the stomach and then placed him over a fence about four metres from the cliff face, where he could have “rolled over the edge”.

He later said he recalled Burns striking Wilkin but he said he didn’t know if she used an implement and couldn’t remember if she used a rock.

Vial took the stand at the trial, where he claimed that he had been grappling with Wilkin in the back of a Volkswagen Passat after a day of heavy drinking in various pubs in Dunkineely.

He said his co-accused suddenly appeared at the front passenger side door of the car and twice struck Wilkin on the back of the head, causing his death.

Vial denied ever striking Wilkin but accepted that he drove to Sliabh Liag where, he said, both he and Burns lifted the deceased over a low fence near the cliff, where he rolled off the edge.

The majority of the jury rejected the exculpatory accounts of both accused.

Justice Paul McDermott on Wednesday told the jury that to return two murder verdicts, they would have to be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that each accused assisted in the killing with the intention to kill or cause serious harm.

Any agreement between them to that end could be explicit or tacit, he said, and could be formed in a very short time. He told the jury to look at all the circumstances leading up to Wilkin’s death and the actions of each accused afterwards.

CCTV footage from pubs in Dunkineely suggested that there was tension between Wilkin and Vial earlier in the night. After they left the pub, Vial claimed that a row erupted when Wilkin took exception to Vial criticising his driving.

He said Wilkin stopped the car at an area known as Roshine, turned in his seat and began punching Vial in the face. He claimed that this was the point when Burns appeared at the front door with the rock.

Prosecution senior counsel Bernard Condon, in his closing speech, told the jury that Vial had told about 80 percent of the truth but wasn’t willing to own up to his part in murdering Wilkin.

He described Vial as a “cynical liar” who had used his knowledge of the book of evidence to weave a story that he thought could not be contradicted.

Burns, Condon said, was convicted by the words out of her own mouth to Chris Quinn and Sharon O’Dowd.