Vampire case man jailed for 18 years

A MAN who claimed to be a vampire was branded an evil and dangerous psychopath yesterday as he was jailed for a minimum of 18 years for the "abominable" murder of a childhood friend.

Allan Menzies, 22, had tried to convince a jury that he was mentally ill when he repeatedly bludgeoned Thomas McKendrick, 21, about the head with a hammer and stabbed him 42 times. He alleged he had been "ordered" to kill to attain immortality as a vampire, and drank the blood of his victim and ate part of his head.

However, the jury decided Menzies, of Fauldhouse, West Lothian, was fully responsible for his actions and should be convicted of murder and not of the lesser offence of culpable homicide for which he might have expected a far more lenient sentence.

The High Court in Edinburgh heard that Menzies had a sadistic trait and enjoyed violence. As a 14-year-old, he was given a three-year sentence for stabbing a fellow pupil in front of classmates.

Sentencing Menzies to life imprisonment for the murder of Mr McKendrick, the judge, Roderick Macdonald, QC, said: "To bring about his death, you engaged in a savage and merciless attack, involving gratuitous and sustained violence of a most horrific nature. In my view, you have shown no remorse whatsoever for the abominable crime you committed."

The judge said he was required to fix the minimum period that Menzies would serve before he could even apply for release on licence, which would be granted only if the parole board determined that it was no longer necessary for the protection of the public that he should be confined.

"Three psychiatrists recently diagnosed you as being a psychopath. In my judgment, you are an evil, violent and highly dangerous man, not fit to be at liberty. I fix the period at 18 years," said Mr Macdonald.

Mr McKendrick’s mother, Sandra French, 54, said: "We are pleased with the verdict."

His sister, Sandra-Mary McKendrick, 23, added: "He [Menzies] has got what he deserved."

Menzies was said to have a vivid fantasy life, involving Nazis, serial killers and vampires. He described becoming addicted to a vampire film, Queen of the Damned, after Mr McKendrick loaned him a copy of the video. On the day of the killing, 11 December, 2002, said Menzies, Mr McKendrick had made an insulting, sexual remark about Akasha, the heroine of the film, and had asked: "You don’t really believe in vampires, do you?"

Menzies said he "snapped" and attacked him with a hammer and two knives. The body was taken in a wheelie bin to woods near Fauldhouse and buried in a shallow grave. It was not discovered for five weeks, during which time Mr McKendrick’s family had thought he was a "missing person".

Menzies claimed that he had been "visited" by Akasha who ordered him to commit a killing in return for being granted immortality as a vampire. He told the jury she had been standing beside him in his kitchen when Mr McKendrick insulted her. She turned her back on Menzies, which made him think she was displeased because, "I let him away with it". He had no reason to want to harm Mr McKendrick but, he added: "At the end of the day, I knew I would have to murder somebody anyway, so ... if you did not murder somebody you could not become a vampire."

Menzies said he now believed he was a vampire and would be rewarded with immortality "in the next life".

Three psychiatrists for the Crown said Menzies had a vivid fantasy life as part of a psychopathic personality disorder, but the disorder was not a mental illness on which a conviction could be reduced from murder to culpable homicide on the ground of diminished responsibility.

Dr Derek Chiswick said: "I suspect his enjoyment of violence is the principal factor in the prolonged and excessively violent nature of this crime."

Alexander Cooper, a defence psychiatrist, said he believed Menzies was schizophrenic at the time of the killing.

In telling the jury how they should approach the issue, the judge said it was essential to Dr Cooper’s diagnosis that Menzies had been having hallucinations. "If you think the accused was lying when he reported experiences of hallucinations … there could be no diminished responsibility in these circumstances," Mr Macdonald told the jury.

After deliberating for about 90 minutes, the jury returned a unanimous verdict of guilty of murder.