A man who murdered his elderly mother with a chainsaw at the home they shared has been jailed for life and told he must serve at least 12 years and six months before he can be considered for release.
Robert Owens killed 75-year-old Iris Owens, a retired history lecturer and charity worker, in the garden of their home in Caerphilly, south Wales.
Sentencing Owens at Cardiff crown court, the judge, Nicola Davies, said Ms Owens was a good mother and the relationship between her and her son had been “close, loving and supportive”.
She said only he knew what had happened that day, adding: “You accept that what you have done was a terrible thing. This was the tragic and senseless murder of a good mother by her son.”
The judge acknowledged that there was no suggestion Owens had planned the attack but said it must have been a terrifying ordeal for his victim.
Owens, 47, dialled 999 after the attack, and when paramedics arrived they found Ms Owens lying on her back and her son with blood on his hands.
She had a laceration to her neck and head and a black eye. There was also blood on a wall and on a tree stump.
Christopher Clee, prosecuting, said Ms Owens had been spotted hanging out her washing in the garden just after 5pm on 3 May. A neighbour then heard the sound of a chainsaw. Owens called for an ambulance at 5.21pm, claiming: “My mother went mad. I was chainsawing some wood and my mother went mad.”
She was pronounced dead 20 minutes later. Owens was arrested on suspicion of murder at 6pm. He said: “I know, I’m going to jail. I can’t believe this has happened. I was just chopping wood. Why did this have to happen?”
The prosecutor said he later told officers: “I didn’t mean to kill my mother. I was chopping wood pallets and she fell off on to my saw.” But at a hearing in September he admitted murder. As well as attacking her with the chainsaw, Owens strangled and kicked his mother in the ribs.
In witness statements read to the court, Owens was said to be close to his mother. One woman who knew them said he seemed “odd, but not scary odd” and sometimes acted “like a child who wanted attention”.
The court was told they began to live together after Ms Owens’ husband died. Owens had a drug problem and heroin, morphine and cocaine was found in his body after the killing.
Paying tribute to Ms Owens, the judge said she was full of life and liked to help others. Owens had been before the court on numerous occasions and had been convicted of offences of dishonesty and violence. But he had no history of mental disorders.
