Luke Deeley was armed with an ax and a powerful chainsaw when he broke into the home of ‘loving and motherly’ June Fox-Roberts, 65, in the early hours of November 21, 2021. A dangerous schizophrenic paranoid used an ax to dismember a woman he had never met before after becoming obsessed with Satan and demons, a court heard.
The art student brutally attacked and then beheaded Ms. Fox-Roberts, a mother of three, before removing her limbs and placing them in plastic bags. The victim’s daughter, Abigail, made the horrific discovery in the dining room of the three-bedroom house in Llantwit Fardre, near Pontypridd, South Wales, after being unable to contact her mother.
Luke Deeley Age
Luke Deeley is 26 years old.
Luke Deeley Schizophrenic detained for killing a woman
Deeley was later found in a trailer in a nearby yard where he lived, and CCTV showed him talking and singing alone wrapped in a blanket. Before his arrest, Deeley believed that a “higher power” was telling him to kill someone, while he also shaved off his beard and dyed his hair to change his appearance.
In a subsequent search of his apartment, police found “demonic drawings” that he had shared with other students in Cardiff before they asked to be transferred due to his erratic and threatening behavior.
Deeley admitted to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility and has now been held indefinitely in a mental hospital. Ms. Fox-Roberts, a retired IT consultant, ran a café in the village.
John Hipkin KC, the prosecutor, told Newport Crown Court that a forensic reconstruction of the murder showed a chainsaw covered in blood, although it was “not used in the dismemberment process.”
Deeley, dressed in a pale blue shirt and royal blue tie, fidgeted from the dock as the gruesome details of the crime were delivered to the court. Hipkin said Deeley was seen removing his cap and shoes near St Anne’s Drive, where Mrs. Fox Roberts had lived since 1985.
He said: ‘The defendant entered through an unlocked door and disturbed Mrs. Fox-Roberts, who found him in the corridor. ‘In the pathologist’s report, Dr. Richard Jones noted blunt force injuries to the head of June Fox-Roberts that appeared to have been sustained in her life.
‘These injuries include a blow to her forehead which must have knocked her unconscious. There were compression-type injuries to the trunk indicative of trampling, and fractures to the left forearm sustained in life that represented defensive-type injuries.
‘From the hallway of the premises, the defendant dragged June Fox-Roberts into the dining area of the property and placed her on a tarp. He proceeded to decapitate and dismember her and placed her limbs in separate bags using an ax recovered at the scene to accomplish this.
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Mrs. Fox-Roberts’ German Shepherd dog was in the house at the time. Just ten days before the incident, the court heard that Deeley threw water at a female student housemate, calling her a ‘b***’ and a ‘c***’.
The prosecutor added: ‘Other students filed a complaint with the rental agent and the defendant abandoned the property, leaving behind all of his belongings. “When the police conducted a subsequent search of that room, a number of artworks drawn by the defendant, demonic in nature, were recovered.”
Deeley had a delusional belief that a group of people were “trying to get him” at the time of the murder, the court heard. He has been prescribed antipsychotic medication after his family raised concerns about his behavior in 2019, but he had “gone away from them.”
Consultant psychiatrist Dr. Tom Wynne told the court: “Luke Deeley suffered from an abnormality in mental function, namely paranoid schizophrenia.” “Deeley’s ability to understand the nature of his behavior, form a rational judgment, and exercise self-control was ‘substantially impaired’ as a result of his” condition.
Dr Wynne said the appropriate sentence would be for Deeley to continue to be held at the high-security Ashworth hospital near Liverpool. Roger Elias, defending, read a letter from Deeley’s parents that said: “The case is disturbing, shocking and tragic, our hearts go out to his family.”
“We can only imagine the pain and trauma they are going through. We wake up every day wishing his mother was alive and well. In a victim impact statement, Ms Fox-Roberts’ daughter, Abigail, said: “Nothing could have prepared me for what happened and what I saw when I got home that Sunday.”
I close my eyes and see the canvas, my mother’s nightgown, these images will never leave me. “My childhood home, my safe space, destroyed in the most violent act I have ever seen or can imagine. My life imploded, I couldn’t function, I was in complete shock.”
Another family member said Deeley’s actions were like a work of fiction or a tongue-twister horror movie. Mr Hipkin explained that Deeley had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and that, due to the nature of his illness, the Crown had accepted his guilty plea for the manslaughter of Mrs. Fox-Roberts by reason of diminished responsibility.
Detaining Deeley indefinitely, Justice Griffiths told the court: ‘This was a brutal murder and dismemberment of a woman after you entered her home at night. ‘I am convinced that the most appropriate way to deal with you is under the mental health law that you are detained at the high-security hospital in Ashworth.
‘There is a high risk that he will commit more serious crimes if he is not arrested. Detention is necessary to protect the public from serious harm. It is not possible to say how long this will be. Judge Griffiths imposed a hospitalization order under Section 37 of the Mental Health Act and a restraining order under Section 41, meaning Deeley can be detained indefinitely.
He added: ‘You only did this terrible thing because of your mental illness. He has no prior convictions and there is no evidence that he had a rational motive for what he did.
You thought you were receiving messages from what you described as a higher power and you were carrying out orders. “You also had a delusional belief that there was a group of individuals that was after you.”
In a statement released later, Ms Fox-Roberts’ family said her “world imploded” with her death. “June was a mother, grandmother and great-grandmother and she loved spending time with her extended family,” she said.
“And she was generous, if someone had a problem, she would do everything in her power to help her, which makes it that much harder to accept that Luke could be so cruel to her for no reason.”
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