Detectives said the murder of an elderly woman at her home in Llanfairpwll was the “most callous and brutal” murder they had encountered.
Mabel Leyshon was found dead at her home in Llanfairpwll on November 25, 2001, murdered at the hands of Matthew Hardman who came to be known as the vampire killer
The grim discovery was made when a carer visited the 90-year-old widow’s house at lunchtime and called police.
Details of what officers found did not emerge for several weeks but a police insider told me in the early days of a massive manhunt for her killer “The Devil has been to Anglesey.”
It was revealed Mrs Leyshon’s heart had been removed and some of her blood had been drained into a saucepan in what police described as a “vampire killing”.
A Daily Post reader alerted the newsdesk in Llandudno Junction to a “significant police presence” in Lon Pant, Llanfairpwll on that Sunday afternoon and I went to the scene. A policeman guarding the gate said the body of an elderly woman had been found.
Soon afterwards the head of North Wales Police Western Division, Chief Superintendent Keith Humphreys, a senior detective and Home Office pathologist Dr Brian Rodgers emerged from the house.
Mr Humphreys came over and said he was only able to gave brief details of what had been found. He appealed to anyone who had seen any suspicious behaviour to contact detectives.
The following weeks were anxious for the people of Llanfairpwll as detectives investigated several lines of inquiry but no arrests were made until early January.
The 17-year-old youth was arrested and quizzed about the murder before being released on bail while forensic tests on items seized from his home in Lon Dryll were carried out.
On January 8, 2002, police arrested Mathew Hardman again and in dramatic scenes two days later Det Supt Alan Jones, the senior investigating officer, emerged from inside Caernarfon Police Station to announce the youth had been charged with Mrs Leyshon’s murder.
As a 17-year-old Hardman could not be named at that stage but after he was convicted a judge ordered his name could be published.
He appeared before magistrates at Holyhead the following day. A small crowd gathered outside the court and hurled abuse as the teenager emerged from a van handcuffed and with a grey blanket over his head.
During the brief hearing his solicitor indicated the youth would be denying the allegation.
The trial was held at Mold Crown Court in July 2002 when full details of the shocking murder emerged.
The jury heard Hardman had struck the previous evening, November 24, when his mother, a nurse, and her partner were away for the weekend.
Wearing gloves and carrying a knife from his kitchen, he walked the few hundred yards from his home to Mrs Leyshon’s neat bungalow home – to which he used to deliver papers on his newspaper round.
She was sitting in her favourite armchair, her back to the sitting-room door, watching television with the sound turned up because of her growing deafness.
Mrs Leyshon did not hear Hardman breaking a glass panel in the back door and letting himself into the kitchen.
He walked into the sitting-room and stabbed her repeatedly with what was described at the time as a “bladed weapon”.
After moving her body to another chair he placed two candlesticks near Mrs Leyshon’s body and two pokers were set in a cross formation at her feet.
Hardman then removed Mrs Leyshon’s heart from her body, wrapped it in newspaper, and placed it in a saucepan which he put on a silver platter.
He also made three gashes in Mrs Leyshon’s leg and drained some of her blood into the same saucepan, from which he then drank.
After police suspicions fell on Hardman, they soon found forensic evidence proving his guilt.
His shoes matched footprints at the scene, and some of his DNA was mixed with blood on the windowsill from which he left the house.
They later found Mrs Leyshon’s DNA on blood traces within the handle of a knife which was still in his pocket in his bedroom.
Detectives also found a cache of vampire-related books, magazines and internet research.
During the trial a witness said Hardman had begged her to make him a vampire by biting him.
The girl, a student from Germany, said she had to fight him off after refusing. Police officers were called but no action was taken.
After a two week trial the jury’s decision was unanimous.
The teenager, who has always denied any involvement in the murder, wept uncontrollably as Mr Justice Richards jailed him for life.
The judge said: “You hoped for immortality but all you have achieved is the brutal ending of another person’s life and the bringing of a life sentence upon yourself.
“The horrific nature of this murder was plain to all. It was a vicious and sustained attack on a vulnerable old lady in her own home, aggravated by the mutilation of her body.
“Why you should have acted in this way is difficult to comprehend but I am drawn to the conclusion that vampirism had indeed become a near obsession with you, that you really did believe this myth may be true, that you did think you would achieve immortality by the drinking of another person’s blood and you found this an irresistible attraction.”
Commending his team for their diligence in catching Hardman Det Supt Alan Jones described his fear Hardman may well have struck again.
The detective went on to describe Hardman as a remorseless killer who used his dyslexia as a weapon to cloud the inquiry.
He added: “Through 16 hours of interview, he at no time offered any sympathy, any concern about Mabel Leyshon and what happened to her.”
See- http://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/crime-files-reopened-brutal-vampire-10466392
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