A 23-year-old lodger stabbed his landlord at least 179 times in a "frenzied attack" driven by the delusional belief he was being poisoned. Moses Fernandes killed 71-year-old Terry McFadyen with a kitchen knife at his home in Norwich.
Attack details emerge in court
Prosecutor William Carter told Norwich Crown Court that Fernandes stabbed Mr McFadyen at 4.43am on November 3 last year. The court heard Fernandes has since been assessed as having a "schizophrenia-like illness" and pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to manslaughter by diminished responsibility.
Fernandes, who had failed his course at the University of East Anglia, had called 999 and requested an ambulance to Mr McFadyen's home in Layer Close, Norwich at 4.05am that day. "He said to the operator that he wasn't sure what had happened but he needed help," Mr Carter said. "He said his body was really tight, he said the others in the house were asleep. He gave his address, age and name and asked for an ambulance to come as quickly as possible."
Messages before the attack
Fernandes messaged a woman, Sarah McRoberts, at 4.16am and "said Terry had poisoned him and he thought he was going to die, he said he was sending her all of his money", Mr Carter said. Mrs McRoberts was asleep and did not see the message until after the attack, and Fernandes had transferred her £8,778 with the reference "Terry".
The prosecutor said the defendant had known Mrs McRoberts since he was aged around 15, when he became friends with a boy of about the same age at his school, who was in the foster care of Mrs McRoberts and her partner.
An ambulance arrived at 4.35am and paramedics were "met by Moses Fernandes who had come outside the house", Mr Carter said. Fernandes, who was barefoot, said unprompted that he was not on drugs and the paramedics "tried to persuade him to go back inside".
Fatal kitchen assault
Mr McFadyen and his partner Jenny Holmwood were "woken by the lights of the ambulance as it arrived", Mr Carter said. Mr McFadyen went downstairs and his partner did not follow him "as she was scared", adding that Fernandes was described as looking "deranged" and "like a madman".
Mr McFadyen and the paramedics managed to persuade Fernandes to go back inside. Mr McFadyen was the first to follow him into the kitchen and "before anyone could stop him the defendant grabbed a serrated knife from the drawer". Fernandes stabbed Mr McFadyen in the upper body including his face and neck in a "frenzied attack".
Both paramedics pressed their panic buttons to summon police "shouting there was a knife", with officers alerted at 4.44am and on scene at 4.48am. Fernandes "was heard muttering to himself 'he poisoned me, that's why'". Mr McFadyen sustained "at least 179 stab wounds" and died at the scene of "massive and unsurvivable blood loss".
Hospital order imposed
Fernandes was taken in an ambulance and initially arrested on suspicion of murder. Prosecutors later accepted his plea to manslaughter by diminished responsibility. In a GP appointment on October 23 to review his medication for sleep, Fernandes had "beliefs, plainly delusional, that those he was staying with were trying to poison him".
The judge said Fernandes and Mr McFadyen "had been on good terms but Moses had recently begun to harbour the deluded beliefs" that he was being poisoned and "that night Moses had a first psychotic episode". He sentenced the defendant to be detained under an indefinite hospital order.
