A woman accused of the murder of County Tyrone man Robert Wilkin told friends “I’m a murderer” and “if I go down, I go down”, a court in Dublin has been told.
Alan Vial, 39, of Drumanoo Head, Killybegs, County Donegal, and Nikita Burns, 23, from An Charraig, County Donegal, both deny the murder of Mr Wilkin on 25 June 2023.
The body of Mr Wilkin, who was also known as Robin, was found in the sea at the foot of the Slieve League cliffs.
On Tuesday, the court was played a recorded phone call in which Nikita Burns allegedly told an acquaintance that she had killed Mr Wilkins.
The witness, Sharon O’Dowd, who is from Letterkenny, recorded the phone call with Ms Burns on the night of 25 June 2023.
In the recording, Ms Burns can be heard in graphic detail describing how she and co-accused Alan Vial used a rock to hit Mr Wilkins on the head.
“I seen Alan [Vial] picking up a rock, so I picked up a rock,” Ms Burns said.
“It was traumatising,” she added.
She said the attack had happened just outside Killybegs, and “we pushed him off Slieve League”.
“They won’t find him, he was thrown over Slieve League, they won’t find him,” she said.
“There is a slim chance we’ll get caught, but if I go down, I go down.”
After the phone call, Ms O’Dowd said she contacted Gardaí (Irish police) and two phones were handed over to them.
Another witness, Chris Quinn, who was living in Letterkenny, said he had let Nikita Burns stay with him for a time as she was “on the street”.
The court was told that on the night of 25 June 2023, Nikita Burns came back to the house at about 23:30 local time.
“She looked like she was out of it,” Mr Quinn told the court and described her eyes “rolling into the back of her head”.
He also described her as being “a bit panicky”.
She was then said to have changed her clothes and then told Mr Quinn and the other people in the house that she was a murderer.
“She said they started fighting with him [Robert Wilkin] in the back [of the car], the two of them, she said a rock was used,” Mr Quinn said.
Mr Quinn told the court that Ms Burns said: “I’m after murdering somebody.”
He then said he went back to a bedroom and described hearing laughing in the other room from Nikita Burns and others there.
The case continues.