Triple murder accused Robert O’Connor was not taking his schizophrenia medication and was using cocaine in the months before he stabbed his parents and younger brother with special needs to death, a pharmacist has told his trial.
Robert O’Connor (32) of Drumgowna, Louth Village, Dundalk, Co Louth, has pleaded not guilty of murder by reason of insanity, or guilty of manslaughter on the basis of diminished responsibility, to the triple murder of his mother Louise O’Connor (56), his father Mark O’Connor (54) and his brother Evan O’Connor (27) at their home between September 28th and 29th, 2025.
The Central Criminal Court jury have been told that the accused accepts he caused the death of the three victims, who sustained a combined 139 stab wounds.
Giving evidence to the trial on Monday, Kim Curtis told Roisin Lacey, prosecuting, that she was the owner of a pharmacy in Louth Village and had come to know the accused’s mother, Louise.
Curtis agreed with the prosecutor that since 2022, she had dispensed Aripiprazole – a schizophrenic or antipsychotic medication – to Louise O’Connor for her son Robert.
Recalling September 1st, 2025, the witness said Louise O’Connor had come into the pharmacy accompanied by her son Robert and was carrying a shoebox.
She said Louise O’Connor had asked for a private consultation and proceeded to put a shoebox on the table, saying “it’s all Robert’s medication”. The accused was sitting in a chair at the time.
When Curtis looked inside the shoebox, she saw between four and five months’ worth of medication that had not been consumed. “Some of the boxes were open, and some were not; Louise wanted to bring the medication back to make me aware that Robert was not taking his medication.”
The witness said Louise O’Connor informed her that the medication was found in Robert’s wardrobe and that her son was taking illicit drugs. “When she told me that, Robert didn’t flinch; he just slouched back in the chair.”
The pharmacist said Louise O’Connor had asked her where to go from here, and she (the witness) had provided a phone number for Turas, a service in Dundalk that helps with drug use and provides mental health services.
The witness continued: “I asked Robert what he had taken when Louise said he was taking illicit medication; he openly said cocaine.”
The pharmacist testified that she had seen Louise O’Connor on her own two weeks later and asked how things were going and specifically whether she had contacted Turas. Louise O’Connor told the witness she hadn’t.
She also told the pharmacist about an incident where Robert had come down to the sittingroom when she and her husband Mark were watching television. She said Robert had asked his mother whether she had called him and Louise said she had not. Robert told his mother a lady had called him or “commissioned” him to come downstairs.
Louise O’Connor also told the pharmacist that her son had got a knife or had a knife on him when he was standing in the sittingroom on that occasion.
Louise O’Connor told the pharmacist that her son must have been hallucinating. The pharmacist asked her whether she had contacted gardaí, but she said she hadn’t.
Curtis said Louise O’Connor had told another story where Robert said he was “going to kill her”.
Under cross-examination by defence counsel Michael Bowman, the witness agreed that Louise O’Connor was doing her “level best” for her son. The witness told the panel that Louise loved Robert.
The witness agreed with Bowman that when the accused told his mother he was “going to kill her”, the threat had not referred directly to Louise O’Connor.
The pharmacist also agreed that she had made Louise O’Connor aware that Robert could be involuntarily sectioned under the Mental Health Act and detained until he was better. She said Louise O’Connor was reluctant and not prepared to do this.
The trial continues on Tuesday before Judge Mícheál P O’Higgins and a jury of six men and six women.