Daniel Conlan, 29, pleads guilty at Bendigo County Court to horrific home invasion near Echuca

A methed-up Riverine butcher attacked a couple in a bloody home invasion, before running down the street shouting “God told me to strike everyone down”.

Daniel Conlan pleaded Bendigo County Court to a bloody home invasion near Echuca.

A methed-up Riverine butcher smashed his way into a couple’s home, beating a man and leaving blood splattered everywhere, before running down the street shouting “God told me to strike everyone down”.

Daniel Conlan, 29, pleaded guilty at Bendigo County Court on Thursday to intentionally causing injury, making threats to kill, aggravated burglary with a person present and intentional criminal damage.

In December 2022 Conlan, while drunk and high on meth, went to the home of a couple in a small town near Echuca.

He walked up to the woman sitting on the porch and screamed in her face that he was going to kill her.

Conlan has been remanded in custody for six months, the court heard.

“I am God you know, and when I was 12 I prayed to the gangster gods and they blessed me so I’m going to join a gang,” he screamed.

“We are going to come back and kill you.”

The next day Conlan came back and sat in front of their house drinking 12 beers over a number of hours before banging on the door trying to gain entry.

Conlan then smashed a window on the front of the house and came into the house, cutting his arm on the way in and attacked a man who lived there saying “I’m going to kill you, you bastard”.

The victim tried to defend himself with a “magpie statue” but Conlan grabbed it from him and threw the older man onto the kitchen floor.

Conlan then punched the man “four or five times to the head with his fists”, breaking his nose and causing a “large jiggered laceration” to the victim’s head that “needed 13 staples” to close.

The man’s wife rushed into the kitchen and grabbed a pepper grinder and began hitting Conlan with it to try and protect her husband.

Conlan pleaded guilty at Bendigo County Court to the horrifying home invasion.

There was blood splattered all over the kitchen from both of the men’s injuries, the court heard.

The woman then ran outside shouting “help, he’s trying to kill (her husband)”.

Conlan then ran outside screaming that he was “God” and that “God had told him to strike everyone down”, the court heard.

Conlan was seen by startled neighbours running down the street, taking off his clothes and “hitting himself in the head and talking to himself erratically”.

Conlan was taken to hospital where his arm was stitched up before he was arrested and taken to Echuca Police Station.

Judge Martine Marich said there was evidence Conlan’s offending was “significantly out of character”.

The court heard Conlan had been experiencing “hallucinations” since 2019 and had experienced a period of “psychosis” that was likely exacerbated by his abuse of alcohol and methamphetamine.

Judge Marich ordered a neurological report to find out more about the “concerning hallucinations”.

The matter was adjourned for Conlan’s mental health to be assessed.

He will return to court for sentencing at a later date.