Everyday squabble over screen time escalated into unspeakable tragedy

Conor, Darragh, and Carla with their father Andrew McGinley. Deirdre Morley, the mother of the three children found dead at their Co Dublin home, has appeared in court charged with their murder.

An everyday squabble over screen time escalated into an “unspeakable tragedy” — the killing of three young children in their family home, the Central Criminal Court has heard.

Deirdre Morley, 44, has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to the murder of her three “cherished, impeccably behaved” young children, Conor McGinley, 9, Darragh McGinley, 7, and Carla McGinley, 3, at their home in Parson’s Court, Newcastle, Co Dublin, on January 24, 2020.  

Detective Sergeant Dara Kenny, from Clondalkin Garda Station, told the court that Ms Morley, an advanced practitioner nurse, told gardaí she first tried to kill her children the night before their deaths. Her husband, Andrew McGinley, was away for the night on a work trip so she believed this was her time to kill them all.

She crushed between six and eight morphine tablets and put them in the two boys’ cereal, and put Tylex in Carla’s purple ‘sippy cup’. 

Ms Morley said she had attempted to sedate the children to make killing them less painful, but the boys did not like the taste of the drugs in the cereal and so did not eat it.

She said she felt “relieved” going to bed that night that she had not killed them.

Argument broke out

But the following day, Darragh was off sick from school and an argument broke out because he wanted more screen time.

“At around 12pm, I just had to end our suffering,” Ms Morley told gardaí. "I got some tape, brown tape, brown thick tape, and a plastic bag and I suffocated Darragh in the front room in the tent. I think I just reached for the tape and put it on his mouth. He started to try and scream.

"He struggled under me for a couple of minutes. I was thinking I wanted to stop, but I couldn't. I didn’t want to do it, but I had to. Because I had started to do it. Something was telling me that I had to do it. But I didn’t want to.

"I had to kill Carla then."

Carla, who had stayed home from creche that day, was watching Trolls in the dining room.

“I’m not sure if I put tape over her mouth or not, I put a bag over her head and a cushion over her mouth and smothered her," said Ms Morley. "I brought her upstairs and she was still breathing. So I held her nose until she wasn’t breathing anymore."

Ms Morley then collected Conor from school early, signing him out for "family reasons". She admitted to gardaí that she intended to kill him “because we all had to go". 

But she said she was “already regretting what she had done”. 

When she got home she put tape over his mouth, pretending it was a game.

“I put it on my mouth first like it was a game," she said. "He put it on his mouth and tried to talk through it. I put a bag over his head. I turned him over and pulled the bag tighter.

“He said: ‘Mum, stop!’

“I said: ‘I’m sorry, Conor.”  

“He struggled a bit, but didn’t jump up because I was on top of him. I twisted the bag and held him down until he stopped moving. 

"It’s horrific. I just want them back."  

Returned from work

When Mr McGinley, Ms Morley’s husband and the children’s father, returned from work he found Conor’s feet poking out from the children’s play tent.

A note left by the stairs said: “Don’t go upstairs, phone 911.” Another note left beside Conor said: “I’m so sorry, I can see no future… I had to take them with me. I’m broken and couldn’t be saved or fixed… I’m so sorry.”

Ms Morley had tried to kill herself but was rescued by passers-by. 

The court heard how Ms Morley had been admitted to St Patrick’s psychiatric hospital months earlier.

She said that she had improved in hospital, but her mental health started deteriorating in the weeks before the killings.

Prosecuting counsel Anne-Marie Lawlor SC said it is for the prosecution to prove that Ms Morley did not just kill her three children, but had the capacity to intend to do so.

She said the jury's primary concern would be the accused's mental state on January 24, when the deaths occurred, and there was no issue in the case as to what happened to the children and how they died.

The trial in front of Justice Paul Coffey at the Central Criminal Court continues.