A paranoid schizophrenic murdered three pensioners he wrongly believed were child abusers after somehow believing he had uncovered a paedophile ring.
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Alexander Lewis-Ranwell, 28, admits killing Anthony Payne, 80, and twin brothers Roger and Dick Carter, 84, but denies murder on the basis of insanity.
He killed all three men within the space of a couple hours in Exeter, Devon after forcing his way into their homes.
Prosecutor Richard Smith says he first killed Mr Payne after coming across a run-down property:
[Lewis-Ranwell] stopped at Mr Payne’s house and read a note on the door which spoke about the occupant being an elderly man of 80 years of age.
The defendant went in through the front door and found or followed Mr Payne upstairs to the bedroom.
The defendant took up a hammer and bludgeoned Mr Payne to death with blows to the head.
He was kind enough to knock on the door of his second victim, who asked him to leave when he answered the door.
Lewis-Ranwell then went round to the back of the property where he found a spade, climbed over a wall then beat the twins to death with it.
Smith says there is ‘no doubt’ that Lewis-Ranwell was suffering a mental illness at the time but the question for the jury is how much responsibility he has for the crimes considering his state of mind at the time.
Well they definitely won’t be accepting this guy’s application over at Dark Justice will they? I mean talk about vigilantism gone wrong.
What I want to know is what clues or evidence he gathered exactly to believe these three old age pensioners were paedophiles in the first place, or did he just dream it up out of nothing? Surely he had something (he thought was) substantive to go off.
Then again I suppose that’s not exactly how it works when you’re a paranoid schizophrenic. One minute you think you’re a hero who’s about to bust an underground paedophile ring run by octogenarians and the next you’re in court facing life for murdering three innocent victims.
RIP to the victims and let’s hope that justice is done.
To watch a paedophile fall over and bust his face while legging it from paedo hunter vigilantes, click HERE. No case of mistaken identity there.
