Murder accused found guilty but insane

A 38-year-old man accused of murdering his mother was found guilty but insane at the Central Criminal Court today.

The jury took less than one hour to return a unanimous verdict on Kevin Bridgeman who had pleaded not guilty to murdering Marie Bridgeman, aged 56, near their home at Mill Estate, Ratoath, Co Meath.

The jury heard evidence from three psychiatrists that Mr Bridgeman was suffering from chronic paranoid schizophrenia at the time of the killing on January 21/22, 2003.

Marie Bridgeman was a well-known Dublin brothel keeper. She was convicted in the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court for running a brothel in Dublin’s Wexford Street in 1999, which had been in operation for five years.

She had one earlier conviction in 1998 and, at the time of her death, was being investigated by the Criminal Assets Bureau.

The court heard that Kevin Bridgeman is a chronic paranoid schizophrenic who suffers from delusions and a persecution complex.

He sat expressionless with arms folded as the jury returned the verdict and just nodded when Mr Justice Barry White ordered him to be detained at the Government’s pleasure in the Central Mental Hospital, Dundrum.

The two-day trial hinged on the central issue of whether he was insane at the time he killed his mother. Three psychiatrists testified that he was in fact insane.

Dr Mona Kilduff, consultant psychiatrist at St Vincent's Hospital, Fairview, told the jury she began treating the accused from May 2001 after she took over from Dr Brian McCaffery.

Dr Kilduff said from his case notes it was apparent that Kevin Bridgeman had a "long-standing history of chronic paranoid schizophrenia" from at least 1992 and maybe since 1990.

He had a history of self-harm, was delusional and displayed acute persecutorial symptoms. He believed he was being "followed" and at one stage thought that Lloyds of London was monitoring him.

He had been admitted to psychiatric institutions on numerous occasions since the mid-1980s, once for a period of five months.

Questioned by Mary Ellen Ring SC, defending, Dr Kilduff said Mr Bridgeman was on medication to control his symptoms but they were so severe she recommended putting him on a different drug that had significant side effects.

"It is not one we use lightly," she said. However, both the accused and his mother refused it.

Dr Kilduff told the jury that Mrs Bridgeman appeared concerned about her son and assured her she would supervise his medication. The last time she saw the accused was December 12, 2002. "Was he on his medication?" asked counsel.

"He was," Dr Kilduff replied.

He was due to attend again on January 16, but missed the appointment.

In evidence, Dr Brian McCaffery said, in his opinion, the accused was "quite insane" at the time of the killing and would not have known that what he was doing was wrong.

Dr McCaffrey assessed Kevin Bridgeman in the Central Mental Hospital, Dundrum, where he was detained after the murder, and found his behaviour bizarre. When Dr McCaffrey asked him about the murder he replied: "It was either her or me."

The court was told that in 1999, Mr Bridgeman lay down underneath a bus wating for it to drive over his legs and amputate them. He had delusions about worms in his legs and thought that would get rid of them.

Dr McCaffrey said that, apart from one incident when he kicked his mother, Kevin Bridgeman was not violent towards her before the murder.

However, this is not unusual with chronic schizophrenics, with Dr McCaffrey adding that Kevin Bridgeman "fitted perfectly" the pattern for matricide carried by young schizophrenic men.

Ms Ring asked Dr McCaffrey if he believed Kevin Bridgeman was legally sane when he killed his mother. "No. He was quite insane at the time," he replied.

The court heard that Marie Bridgeman died from a combination of brain injury, inhalation of blood, facial fractures and compression of the neck.

Neighbours saw him jumping up and down in a frenzy on what turned out to be his mother’s body.

After the killing he went back inside the family home and waited calmly for the gardaí to arrive.

Sergeant James Troy, Ashbourne Garda Station, had told the court that Mr Bridgeman had admitted killing his mother during questioning.

In a statement of interview read out in court Kevin Bridgeman stated: "I battered her to death with my fists…I kept hitting her with my fists…I hit her and I gouged out her eyes."

However, the medical evidence showed that Kevin Bridgemen neither stabbed his mother nor gouged out her eyes, prompting Mr Justice White to describe this a "figment of his imagination".

The court heard that the killing happened after an argument in which Marie Bridgeman told her son to go to bed and turn off the light, but he refused. She then told him she was going to see his father and he called her back. He told gardaí she was domineering towards him and "wrecking my head".

Releasing the jury from further service for 10 years, Mr Justice White said this was a very tragic case in which the collective view of the professionals involved was that the accused man was legally insane at the time he killed his mother.