A Brooklyn man who admitted to strangling his father to death in a five-star Irish hotel was found not guilty by reason of insanity on Thursday.
Henry McGowan, 31, was cleared after an Irish jury debated his fate for just over an hour, the Irish Times reported.
McGowan confessed to police that he’d killed his father, 66-year-old John McGowan, on Nov. 12, 2024, at the Ballyfin Demesne. McGowan suffers from schizoaffective disorder and was going through a psychotic episode at the time, according to his lawyers and multiple psychiatrists.
At the trial, psychiatrists for the prosecution and the defense both testified that McGowan was not in his right mind when he killed his father, the BBC reported.
John McGowan had traveled from his home in Connecticut to Ireland to meet his son after hearing he was not taking his medication and went through a wild series of events in Europe.
Henry McGowan told police he ran from Dublin’s airport to the city center and left all his personal belongings behind, Irish broadcaster RTE reported. He was then hospitalized and given medication, and his father arrived to meet him.
The McGowans reached an agreement that Henry would take his medication and then fly home with his father after obtaining an emergency passport, according to RTE. But instead, Henry left his father, wandered near a pool naked and strangled him in a nearby bathroom.
“I killed him, I strangled him, I told him I would always love him no matter what as he had his last breath,” he told the Irish police.
