How an ‘intelligent man’ with two uni degrees became a callous killer
The mental health of an intelligent man with two degrees deteriorated badly for about six months before lighting a Molotov cocktail and throwing it on a Brisbane bus driver, an inquest has been told.
Anthony O’Donohue, an accountant, was charged with murder over the death of 29-year-old Manmeet Sharma, also known as Manmeet Alisher, at Moorooka in Brisbane’s south about 9am on October 28, 2016.
But Queensland’s Mental Health Court declared him of unsound mind and not criminally responsible for his actions.
That court ordered he be held in a mental health facility for at least a decade, the first time such an order had been made.
O’Donohue long believed he was being persecuted, but his mental illness became very severe in the six months before the attack on Mr Sharma, psychiatrist Dr Angela Voita told the inquest in Brisbane on Tuesday.
Although other experts found Mr O’Donohue had delusional disorder, Dr Voita diagnosed him with schizophrenia while treating him for five years until December at The Park high security inpatient unit.
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She told the inquest of a “profound deterioration” in his mental illness before the attack on Mr Sharma.
He thought those treating him were involved in a conspiracy and that he was being sent messages through his computer and television.
But “he didn’t believe he actually had a mental illness,” Dr Voita said.
In the first year after being admitted O’Donohue thought staff were part of a conspiracy from their gestures or how they looked at him, and that people were reading his mind.
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Dr Voita said O’Donohue felt bad yet justified for his actions that led to Mr Sharma’s death.
“He felt his life had come to a point where he had to express … to the world and to the persecutors that this (the ongoing persecution) had to stop,” she added.
Dr Voita found O’Donohue changed his view of the persecution over time with treatment, no longer believing staff and family were involved.
The inquest heard earlier he received involuntary and voluntary mental health treatment for years before being discharged on August 1, 2016.
When he tried to make a further appointment on August 31, 2016 O’Donohue was told he had been closed to the service.
The inquest is focused on the treatment he received from mental health services and bus driver safety.
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