A MAN pleaded guilty yesterday to killing a woman at her remote home in Co Fermanagh last year.
Joseph Dolan (29) of no fixed abode, had denied murdering Pauline Kilkenny on a date between 6 November and 14 November 2018.
He was due to go on trial in Dungannon earlier this week accused of murdering the 59-year-old at her isolated bungalow, stealing her Fiat Panda car, and implicating his former girlfriend in the killing.
However he appeared at Laganside Court in Belfast yesterday where he pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
Prosecution QC Ciaran Murphy told Mr Justice Colton that they had the opportunity of considering psychiatric reports, and on the balance of those reports his manslaughter plea was accepted.
However, Mr Murphy added that they may be another report, as there was the question of Dolan's dangerousness, which may also require oral evidence from one or other of the doctors.
Mr Justice Colton, who remanded Dolan back into custody for sentencing in the new year, said having seen reports he could "well see the merit and sense of the approach taken in this case".
Throughout the short proceeding Dolan sat in the dock with his head bowed and on being led out of court did not look in the direction of the public gallery just feet away, where Ms Kilkenny's sisters and brother-in-law and other family members were sitting.
No details surrounding the killing were given in court however, it is understood she was stabbed up to 30 times, and battered in her isolated home, a mile off the Cornacully Road, halfway between Belcoo and Garrison.
Among the horrific wounds believed to have been inflicted were eight stab wounds to her head and neck, two to the right side of her torso and 20 stab wounds to her back. She also suffered a number of serious head injuries caused by blunt force trauma.
Ms Kilkenny, a keen animal lover, who often took in strays to care for, was found by her sister, after concerns were raised when she did not show up for work at Lilley's Centra on the Lough Shore Road in Enniskillen, where she had worked for the previous two years.
She had provided homeless Dolan with a place to live when he returned from the Republic, where he had 27 previous convictions, including for 'violent disorder'.
In January 2013 he was sentenced to three years for robbery and for beating a Drogheda pensioner 'as hard as he could' with his the victim's umbrella, and then hours later stabbing a taxi driver.
Dolan, who threatened the driver he would slit his throat, ended up stabbing him a number of times when he struggled with him. The taxi driver was later treated for puncture wounds to the back of his neck and shoulder.
The Cavan man was homeless at the time and had written letters apologising to the taxi driver and the pensioner, and entered an early guilty plea which his lawyer said was ' a genuine expression of remorse'.
