Man guilty of murdering elderly neighbour with machete

Victim had to be identified through dental records following horror attack

Members of the Garda Technical Bureau at the scene in Whitechapel Road area Clonsilla, Blanchardstown, Dublin 15.

A man who attacked his elderly neighbour with a machete leaving him so badly injured that he had to be identified through dental records has been found guilty of murder.

A jury took a little over five hours to unanimously reject Patrick McDonagh's claim that his responsibility for the "brutal" crime was substantially diminished because he was suffering an acute episode of schizophrenia. During the two-week trial at the Central Criminal Court, the prosecution argued that the symptoms McDonagh detailed to psychiatrists were evidence of "malingering" and that if there was any abnormality in his mental state, it would most likely be accounted for by cannabis use.