Man said to have tried to kill his mother

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33804, 29 March 1975, Page 17

Man said to have tried to kill his mother

A man said to have told his. mother, “Mum, you gave me life. I give you death. Death is beautiful,” when he allegedly tried to kill her last Christmas Day was sent Io the Supreme Court for trial on Thursday. Alan Gordon Mackie (Mr K. N. Hampton), a 23-year-old freezing worker, pleaded not guilty to attempting to murder Aynslie Anne Mackie. a widow, when the taking of depositions ended in the Magistrate’s Court. He was remanded lo Sunnyside Hospital. Mr N.i ;W. Williams called seven ; witnesses for the prosecution. Mrs Mackie told Mr W. F.l Brown, S.M., that she telephoned her son at his Dune- ; din flat before she left for 'Amberly on December 20 to : spend Christmas with a friend, Mr George Lee. Alan had sounded strange land had told her, “1 suppose , I should wish you a merry ; Christmas, though 1 don’t 1 think you'll have one.” She heard from her son next i in Amberley, when he telephoned j her there from Christchurch on December 23. He joined his , mother in Amberiey and shared i with her a bedroom containing | two single beds. ! On the night of December 24. . Mackie went to bed just after ; midnight and was asleep w hen ' ais mother retired. Later. Mackie awakened his mother when it was still dark ind told her he was “going to lave a bad night.” and that he leeded her help. “This has happened before at ionic, and I’ve had people from

Cherry Farm to help him.” said’ Mrs Mackie. “But this night he was pretty bad and he wanted me to talk with him and pray' with him. “A lot of what he was saying' wasn’t making sense. “He told me he'd been on dope, which I hadn't known before. “He tried to take my wedding rings off — he wanted me to} take everything off.

11 “He was holding my hands and !i telling me to face east and that i 1 had to die before dawn.” ■ Mrs Mackie said her son them grabbed a pair of trousers at the 'foot of the bed and took from them what appeared to be a i. razor-blade container. She thought it could have been more drugs so she grabbed the container off him. Mackie then' • (Started to struggle with his mother. i “He said. ‘l’ve got to kill you. I've got to kill you’.” said Mrs; :Mackie. She called for help and! [banged on the floor before' ■ Mackie grabbed her around the ineck. She passed out. When she came to she was on the floor, with blood coming from her ‘throat. “Alan was on the floor : too. kneeling and sort of struggling and pleading with me to die.” said Mrs Mackie. ;[ “He had his hand on his throat; and said I had to die first, and then he would. “George (Lee) came in and i' Alan swung around. ; “Mr Lee gave him a chop on the back and Alan said. ‘Get behind me, Satan,” in an animal's ) voice. “It wasn’t his voice at all. k “Later I saw a razor blade on the floor and Alan made a dive ■ for it. , “I tore myself away from him f and rushed into the kitchen, p where 1 was bleeding and bleedL ing.” 1 George William Lee, a retired tour driver, said that when he • came into the bedroom Mackie was naked and half across his mother's back, with an arm , around her throat. He (Mr Lee) f; tried to get Mackie off the , woman but failed. ‘ There was blood everywhere. ' Mrs Mackie was clutching her 1 throat. He went to a neighbour’s house for help and called the , police and a doctor. Dr David William Kerr said r he treated Mrs Mackie at Christt church Hospital She had a 12cm gash in her neck, deep enough to perforate the wind pipe She > had been in hospital about three 1 weeks. Detective-Inspector James William Withers said he interviewed 5 Alan Mackie in Christchurch Hospital on January 3.

I “lie told me he was mentally i unsound at the lime of the inci-i dent, that he was paranoid and is that he was in fantasyland. j “He told me, ‘I strangled her; i:at the start and then I got a* i razor blade and cut her throat. I intended to kill her — it was i the fantasyland. I thought I had > to kill her so she would live —• /not in the physical world but in i the spiritual world after." Witness said Mackie had admitted taking LSD about four weeks i’bcfore the incident. II , Hritaiii’s Health Half of Britain’s wealth is . still owned by 5 per cent of j the adult population, and a ’ quarter of it by I per cent. Treasury figures for the year ilof 1973 have just been updated from 1970. and show i hardly any change in the per■centages. — London. March *‘26.