A man has been handed a life sentence for murdering his younger brother in their family home during lockdown in November 2020.
Gary Murtagh of Broadstone in Dublin 7, claimed he just snapped when he beat his brother, Paul, to death with a hammer.
In 2016, Gary Murtagh moved back into the family home in Dublin with his younger brother, Paul.
The court heard they had a very poor relationship and by the time this tragedy unfolded, Paul had taken to wearing a dashcam around the house.
The dashcam contained a huge amount of footage, mostly of his daily activities during lockdown, but crucially, it also recorded his brother’s fatal attack on him.
When asked about that footage, Gary admitted using the hammer to beat his brother, claiming he just “snapped.”
A post-mortem revealed 16 blows to the head alone.
The judge was told lockdown was a difficult time for Gary and that his relationship with his brother became more and more fraught as time wore on.
In their victim impact statement, his other siblings said they were still struggling to understand what happened that day.
They described Gary as “very caring and kind-hearted” and they had no doubt what he did was not intentional.
Court report by Frank Greaney
