Moments after she stabbed her boyfriend to death on Christmas Day, a NSW Central Coast woman sent a text message telling another man she was going to eat the body because "I think he tastes good". In the NSW Supreme Court Tamie Melehan admitted to killing her boyfriend, but pleaded not guilty to murder by reason of mental illness. David Vaughan, 30, suffered 16 stab wounds to his neck, six to his chest and four to his abdomen during the frenzied knife attack by his girlfriend of three months at her apartment on December 25, 2008.
Prosecutor Michael O'Brien said that at the time Mr Vaughan was killed, Melehan sent another man a series of text messages telling him she missed him and inviting him over to feast on her boyfriend's "delicate meat". "Oi, can I eat this fella?" she said. "I think he tastes good ... there's enough to go around if you want to join in - no joke, delicate meat ... Dear me, need help to get rid of the body."
A little later she phoned her mother saying: "Can you come over and get him before I slit his throat?" Melehan's mother, Loretta Watts, arrived at her daughter's home to find Mr Vaughan dead on the floor of the shower with blood gurgling out of a slash wound in his neck.
Mr O'Brien told Justice Monika Schmidt there was ample psychiatric evidence to support claims that Melehan was suffering "an acute exacerbation of her chronic mental illness" and was acting in "a delusional way" at the time of the attack. Justice Schmidt adjourned proceedings and is expected to give her decision soon.
4 comments:
I've always thought the insanity plea was completely bogus, but if I was on the jury I think I would give it to her.
Why have you always thought that? Do you think mental illness doesn't exist or do you just think it shouldn't make any difference when a crime has happened?
Guest: I still think the insanity plea is bogus. So what do you have to do to get away with brutal murder? Just send a few weird text messages?
Adou: I suspect you'd need to undergo psychiatric assessment and have had other symptoms. And it's not like they'd just let you walk out the courthouse door, free, after the trial, either.
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