A teenager is accused of strangling his grandmother for cash to buy drugs.

Emma Wilkins reports Father's clues led to son's murder trial

A TEENAGER strangled his grandmother when she caught him stealing her
savings to feed his drug habit, a court was told yesterday.

Luke Hamilton, 18, was arrested after his parents challenged a postmortem
examination that said Daphne Cole, 83, had died of a heart attack. They
later supported their son's alibi that he was at home when his grandmother
was killed.

Verna and Terry Hamilton became suspicious when they could not find Mrs
Cole's pension money, which she kept in a tin at her bungalow in Bury St
Edmunds, Suffolk. They held a family conference ten days after her death in
January this year and asked police for a second postmortem, Chelmsford
Crown Court was told.

The examination by David Harrison, a Home Office pathologist, found that
Mrs Cole had suffered two fractured bones in her neck and had died of
manual strangulation. There were bruises on her jaw, scalp and left
shoulder and bleeding under her eyes.

Michael Corkery, QC, for the prosecution, said that Luke Hamilton was
arrested after police discovered he had lied about his movements on the day
of her death. A DNA sample from a cigarette found on the path outside Mrs
Cole's back door matched his genetic fingerprint. He told police that he
thought he had strangled his grandmother while in a dreamlike state after
taking amphetamines, and had imagined he was being chased by werewolves. Mr
Hamilton, who pleads not guilty, "was desperately in debt, having to
finance a drug habit", Mr Corkery said.

Mrs Hamilton, a clerk at West Suffolk Hospital, Bury St Edmunds, was
telephoned by a neighbour of Mrs Cole who saw that her sittingroom lights
were still on at 10am. Terry Hamilton found his motherinlaw lying in the
hall, an upturned tray with the remains of her supper spilt on the floor.

He noticed a red line around her throat and called a doctor, who saw grazes
on her neck and nose. Mr Hamilton found a cigarette stub in a gap between
slabs of the garden path. He saw large footprints in the snow, with the
heel in the shape of two diamonds. The prints led from the back door to the
garden gate.

Police decided that nothing had been disturbed or stolen. Two days later, a
postmortem examination by Hussein AlRofaie, of West Suffolk Hospital,
concluded that she had died of a heart attack.

"Meanwhile, the family became rather concerned because they could not find
any of her pension money or any of the money she had been saving," Mr
Corkery said. She had been saving to have her front door doubleglazed and
had collected three weeks' pension money, about £220, from a post office on
the day before her death.

Luke Hamilton told police that he had not seen his grandmother for six
weeks, and had been at a driving lesson on the day of her death. He said he
went home and later visited a friend, Tim Flack, 21, who lived near his
home in Bury St Edmunds.

Police discovered the driving lesson was in the morning and that the DNA
matched the cigarette butt. Tests showed the cigarette could have been a
Rothmans Royal Light, which was the brand Luke Hamilton usually smoked, the
court was told. Mr Flack told police that Mr Hamilton had arrived at his
house with £315 which he had counted in front of him, giving him £100. Mr
Hamilton told Mr Flack a "spurious" story about getting the money from a
wallet which he had seen inside a BMW car in a car park. Police searched
the car park for signs of broken glass but found none.

Mr Corkery said that while on remand, Mr Hamilton had told a fellow inmate
at Norwich prison how he had planned to steal the cash, "hoping she would
think she had mislaid it. He went to the bungalow and she let him in. He
tried to sneak the money out of the tin, but she saw him take it and said
she was going to telephone his parents.

"There was shouting and a bit of a struggle. He put both hands over her
mouth and round her throat. He squeezed and he was ranting and raving. She
went limp and fell to the floor," Mr Corkery said. "He felt as if he was in
a dream, like a computer game, and had lost control."

At a meeting with his father, Mr Hamilton was seen to pass over a
"rambling" letter. "In it, the boy says things like 'It wasn't me, it was
the drug'," Mr Corkery said.

On the afternoon of his grandmother's death, Mr Hamilton had taken
cannabis, Mr Corkery said. His parents supported his alibi that he was at
home between 4pm and 8pm. "The question of their reliability is for you to
decide," Mr Corkery told the jury.

The trial was adjourned.