Teenager killed parents before spending spree
LONDON (Reuters) - A teenager who bludgeoned his parents to death before using their credit cards to fund a spending-spree holiday in the U.S. with his girlfriend was sentenced to life imprisonment on Wednesday.
Brian Blackwell, 19, who had a serious personality disorder, had earlier pleaded guilty at Liverpool Crown Court to the July 2004 manslaughter of his parents Sydney, 72 and Jacqueline, 61.
The couple’s bodies were found in September 2004 at their home in an affluent area of Merseyside. Both had been repeatedly stabbed and attacked with a hammer.
“This has been a very tragic case involving the death of a mother and father, leaving the remaining family shattered,” Mike Keogh of Merseyside Police said after the trial.
“Throughout this investigation we have found almost overwhelming evidence of two caring parents who doted on their son Brian and had ambitions only for him to fulfil his undoubted potential,” Keogh added.
Blackwell was academically successful but had deluded fantasies about his success and importance. His condition, diagnosed as “narcissistic personality disorder”, was the same as suffered by John Hinckley, who shot U.S. President Reagan in 1981.
After killing his parents Blackwell took his girlfriend on a luxury holiday in America, running up bills of more than 30,000 pounds.
When he returned he stayed with his girlfriend’s parents and later discovered he had got straight A passes in his maths, chemistry, biology and Spanish A-levels.
He had told his girlfriend he could not go home as his parents were away on holiday, but was arrested after the discovery of their decomposing bodies.
FCUK