Jail for Corkman who punched 88-year-old man to death in ward in Mercy Hospital

A ferocious and frenzied killing saw a young hospital patient who was being treated for delirium punching an 88-year-old man to death in the room they were sharing at Mercy University Hospital and today he was jailed for 12 years.

33-year-old Dylan Magee of 30 Churchfield Green, Cork, was sentenced by Judge Siobhán Lankford after being found not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility, for the killing on January 22 2023 at Room 2, St Joseph’s Ward, Mercy University Hospital, of Matthew Healy.

Mr Healy’s wife had died 20 days earlier and he was admitted to hospital after a fall at home and was due to be released. He was sharing a room with Mr Magee and four others. 

Just hours before the killing, another man in that ward asked to be moved to another room because he was so concerned about the behaviour of Dylan Magee who was walking around the room, talking to himself and laughing. 

That other patient was told there was no other bed available.

Judge Lankford described the fatal attack as frenzied and ferocious and commented: “It seems to me that the evidence suggests that at the very least it was unwise to have Mr Magee in a general ward even with the benefit of a special care assistant on the night in question.” 

The judge said that as an 88-year-old man lying in a hospital bed Mr Healy was completely helpless and very vulnerable when attacked by the much young man who could not be pulled away from the attack despite the efforts of a nurse and the special care assistant. 

Dylan Magee was making no sense on the night and said at one stage: “This man ate my son.” 

The judge said that without the verdict that included the reference to diminished responsibility, the headline sentence would have been 20 years, but that with a plea of guilty being offered to manslaughter by diminished responsibility and with the psychiatric evidence of delirium there was an entitlement to a reduction of approximately one third of the sentence.

Judge Lankford sentenced him to 13 years, with the last year suspended so that he could come under the direction of the probation service for two years on his release from prison, and the sentence was backdated to when he went into custody in January 2023.

The deceased man’s daughter, Claire Healy, said their father was a true gentleman, kind, humble, and unassuming, with a gentle soul and a warm, sincere presence, always smiling and pleasant, with a caring manner that made people feel at ease.

“He treated everyone with respect and deserved the same in return. He always thought of others before himself. I have little doubt that our poor Dad was lying awake all night before he was attacked, absolutely petrified about what was going on in his room at the Mercy Hospital, but too polite to say anything for fear of offending the perpetrator or not wanting to inconvenience the staff.

“Words can't express how traumatising it has been to discover that the attack was carried out by someone who went on a drug binge, suffered delirium from the withdrawal, and then pleaded diminished responsibility,” Ms Healy said.

Detective Garda Michelle Quinn said the late Mr Healy had been admitted to hospital for general medical care after falling at home. Dylan Magee was admitted for psychiatric care as he was experiencing delirium and hallucinations. 

Dylan Magee was given sedatives, and there was the assignment to him of a special care assistant – employed for patients who are elderly, incapacitated or intoxicated. 

In the early hours of the morning Dylan Magee went to Mr Healy’s bed and punched him repeatedly in the face until he was dead.

“Hearing that Dad had died after being told he was doing well was like a sucker punch in itself. When I heard that he had been attacked by another patient, I was convinced I must be trapped in a nightmare that I would eventually wake from. 

"But I will never wake up from that nightmare… the moment I heard the details of this horrific and unprovoked attack and asked myself whether it could possibly be real.

“I will never get over the fact that the hug I gave my Dad when I left shortly after my mother's funeral turned out to be my last goodbye. I will always wonder whether, had I been allowed to visit him the day before he was killed, I might have raised concerns that our Dad was in an unacceptably dangerous environment.” 

Judge Lankford said Dylan Magee could not be described as being of previous good character as his 25 convictions before this included two for assault causing harm and one for robbery.

The judge said that both psychiatrists who gave evidence in the trial noted that Dylan Magee had been admitted to hospital 65 hours before the attack and that “intoxication was not the proximate cause of the delirium” and that one psychiatrist remarked that the sedation he was given in hospital was like throwing a glass of water on a fire.