‘I put the knife to my throat. I looked at Robert. I dropped my hand with the knife to my side’

WAYNE O’DONOGHUE looked into his bathroom mirror with a knife held to his throat as 11-year-old Robert Holohan lay dead on the floor.

The Central Criminal Court in Cork heard yesterday that O’Donoghue was in a state of panic and was contemplating suicide. He could not go through with it that afternoon, within minutes of killing his next-door neighbour. He decided to get rid of the body first and kill himself later by hanging himself from a tree in the garden when everyone was gone to bed.

It was 12 days before Wayne O’Donoghue, aged 21, broke down and confessed to gardaí that he killed Robert.