Murderer who stopped to watch TV as he tortured Good Samaritan to death is jailed for 16 years
Scott Hilling butchered Kathleen Griffin then washed her body when it started to smell
A HOMELESS killer who stabbed a grandmother to death and then sat with her dead body and watched TV has been caged for 16 years.
Scott Hilling, 26, claimed he heard voices telling him to butcher Kathleen Griffin, 57, at her home in Clacton, Essex.
He punched her in the face until she was unconscious and suffered brain damage.
Hilling tied her wrists together, tortured her with a scalpel and stabbed her 14 times in the neck, chest and back.
Kind-hearted Kathleen had taken Hilling into her home in Old Road after she was introduced to the homeless man through a mutual friend.
He told cops he stopped stabbing her to watch TV and that he dragged her body to the bathroom to wash it when it began to smell.
Shortly after the deadly attack he drove to McDonald’s where he confessed to a friend.
Later he tried to burn her body with lighter fluid and then unsuccessfully tried to put it in a wheelie bin.
Hilling denied murder on 17 December last year but admitted to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
Earlier today a judge at Chelmsford Crown Court took the decision away from the jury because the prosecution failed to call psychiatric experts to prove their murder charge.
Doctors for the defence said Hilling suffered from mental illness, personality disorders and had a low IQ.
Sentencing today the judge said it was "an horrific, savage killing" which had caused shock and revulsion.
He added: "You tied her up and tortured her.
“She must have been petrified in those minutes or so before her death."
He added: "This was a sickening and brutal killing of a defenceless woman, described as being kind hearted and generous.
“You repaid that generosity by killing her."
Hilling was detained under the Mental Health Act and could be transferred to prison for the remainder of his sentence.
During the week-long trial the jury heard how Hilling warned Kathleen that he was going to kill her.
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He told doctors: “The voices were telling me to take her life. I got up went to kitchen and sat down with three knives and I said to Kat 'I have got to take your life'.
“She didn't believe me and she was laughing.
“I got up and stabbed her in the neck.
“She didn't even scream.”
He added: "I sat back down and watched TV for 15 minutes, which was Channel 4 music and was listening to a song.
"I was not thinking about anything really.
“I remember there was a bread knife which wouldn't go through her skin so I put it back through the hole in the chest.
“I don't remember how many times I stabbed her."
Hilling claimed Ms Griffin was still talking and smoking to him as he was stabbing her, something his defence rejected.
The court heard that Hilling claimed he was sexually abused as a child by his father and had behavioural problems at school.
He was addicted to crack cocaine and heroin.
He was taken in by Ms Griffin when he had nowhere to live on release from prison in September last year for stealing a television from his landlord.
After the sentencing, the Crown Prosecution Service issued a statement saying it respected the judge's decision to withdraw the murder charge from the jury.
However, they said they had considered there had been “sufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction for murder and that a jury should hear the case for murder.”
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