Schizophrenic Man Slits Grandmother’s Throat, Unable To See Her ‘Suffer’ From Dementia

A British man, who admitted to slitting his grandmother’s throat because he could not see her suffering from dementia anymore, appeared before the Chelmsford Crown Court on Monday.

Antony Jennings, 33, was accused of killing Ruby Wilson, 94, who was living at Forest Place Nursing Home in Buckhurst Hill, Essex, with a bread knife Nov. 29 during a visit. Wilson suffered from dementia.

Prosecutor Stephen Rose said Jennings did not let the nurse tending to his grandmother any wind of his intentions or that he was concealing a sharp object when he went to visit his elderly relative.

“She [a nurse] saw Mr. Jennings and Mrs. Wilson meeting and drinking tea together at the lounge table. Mrs. Wilson appeared to be very pleased to see her grandson,” Rose said, Metro reported.

After that, Jennings requested the nurse to let him accompany Wilson to her room at the facility, to which she agreed. After just 10 minutes alone with his grandmother, Jennings reportedly came out of the room and told the nurse, “I’m sorry…I just killed my Nan.”

Although the nurse initially thought Jennings was joking, she found Wilson unresponsive in her chair and bleeding from her neck. She had received multiple cuts to her throat.

“Obviously her throat had been cut. Significant amounts of blood were on her clothing and on the floor,” Rose said.

The emergency services were called to the facility 1.20 p.m. local time (8:20 a.m. EDT) following the alleged incident, and Wilson was declared dead at 5:45 p.m. local time (12:45 p.m. EDT) on the same day.

A postmortem report of the victim revealed she had received “a number of separate cuts,” which had divided the carotid artery and jugular vein. Her provisional cause of death was wound to the neck.

A 20 centimeter-long and three centimeter-wide orange bread knife with traces of Wilson’s blood on it was found in a JanSport back pack by investigators, which was in Jennings’ possession. Another eight centimeter smooth-bladed knife was also found in the bag but it did not have blood on it.

Jennings later told the police he did not regret murdering his grandmother, as he believed his act saved Wilson from greater suffering.

“I don’t want her to suffer any more and she’s not in pain any more. I just wanted to get that done for ages to be honest with you mate. I just can’t take it anymore. She doesn’t know who anyone is, she’s in agony. I killed her, I just cut her throat,”

He initially pleaded not guilty to the charge of murder, but later entered the alternate plea of guilty to manslaughter.

Three different psychiatrists evaluated Jennings’ mental condition and reached the same conclusion — the suspect suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, including features of psychosis, moments of paranoia and delusions.

“Sometime before this happened, he had been seriously mentally ill,” Dorian Lovell-Pank, representing Jennings, said. “His family was aware of that. He was ill and they were deeply concerned, so that by Nov. 29 when this terrible event took place, this man was very deeply disturbed and sick. That of course is not an excuse for what he did, as you have heard. But it is an explanation for what he did.”

Wilson moved to the facility in May 2017 and was visited by her daughter, Hazel.

“On the face of it, you may think she was comfortable, cared for and loved,” Rose said.