Irishman who killed and dismembered mother must remain in hospital

A MAN who beheaded his mother and buried her dismembered body in a shallow grave must stay in hospital, a judge has ordered.

Psychiatrists at the State Hospital in Carstairs, Scotland, are still trying to assess James Dunleavy's mental condition.

An earlier trial heard harrowing evidence suggesting that Philomena Dunleavy (66) may still have been alive, but unconscious, when he began to hack off her legs with a knife and saw.

But the horror of her final moments at the hands of her deranged 40-year-old son will probably never be known.

Mother-of-five Mrs Dunleavy had left her home in Annadale Crescent, Marino, Dublin, in early April last year and arrived in Scotland on April 24 to visit her eldest son James, who is also known as Seamus.

Days later she was dead, butchered in the labourer’s flat in Edinburgh.

It was more than a month before Mrs Dunleavy's remains were unearthed. A suitcase was missing from the flat, and a spade was found in the back green.

Dunleavy denied murder and attempting to defeat the ends of justice by burying his mother to try to cover up the crime.

SECURITY

A jury at the High Court in Edinburgh convicted him by majority of a reduced charge of culpable homicide. They also found him guilty of the attempted cover-up.

Judge Lord Jones told Dunleavy: “You require to be detained under conditions of such security as can be provided in the State Hospital.”

Yesterday, the judge continued his interim order for the doctors to continue their work.

Defence QC Gordon Jackson told the court that Dunleavy wanted the matter dealt with, but given what the doctors had said so far, that was “unrealistic”.

No one saw Mrs Dunleavy's final journey in a suitcase, nor the undignified shallow grave being dug – a back-breaking task in the hard soil of Corstorphine Hill.

There Mrs Dunleavy remained until ski instructor Aaron McLean-Foreman (24) stopped to sunbathe while pushing his bike along a narrow path on a warm June afternoon.

He was confronted by the decomposed face of Mrs Dunleavy in the dirt, his attention drawn by her gleaming teeth.

Source-Irish Independent