The sight of an eight-year-old girl prompted gardaí to force entry to the house where Jasmine McMonagle had been killed, a Central Criminal Court jury has been told today.
The trial continues of 32-year-old Richard Burke of Killygordon, Co Donegal has pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty of the manslaughter of 28-year-old mum-of-two Jasmine McMonagle on January 4, 2019.
RTE News reports details of the account of Sergeant Brendan McCann of Ballybofey Garda Station, who was present during an hours-long stand-off outside Miss McMonagle’s home on the night she was killed.
Gardaí travelled to Miss McMonagle’s home at Forest Park in Killygordon following receipt of a 999 phone call for help. The armed support unit and a crisis negotiator later travelled to the scene. When a child was spotted in a front window upstairs, a decision was taken to make an “immediate and dynamic forced entry” to the house.
Today’s trial also heard that a post mortem was carried out by State Pathologist Linda Mulligan and that cause of death was determined to be ligature strangulation and multiple traumatic injuries to the head and throat.
Read the full report at: https://www.rte.ie/news/courts/2023/0321/1365479-donegal-trial/