'Death had a face': Man gets life for murdering woman, 71, in her Kilkenny home

Mother-of-one Anne Butler, 70, was murdered on Maudlin Street in Kilkenny on March 20, 2020, after being stabbed, beaten and mutilated by Trevor Rowe, a 30-year-old drug addict

Trevor Rowe of Abbey Street, Kilkenny, was given the mandatory life sentence for the murder of Anne Butler, 70, on March 20, 2020. File picture: Dylan Vaughan.

A man has been jailed for life for the brutal murder of a Kilkenny pensioner, who suffered a "torturous and painful death" and "unnatural terror" in her own home, her distraught daughter told Central Criminal Court on Friday.

"Death had a face; it shouldn't," Elayne Butler said of her mother's murderer, Trevor Rowe, who remained unmoving and head-bowed throughout the hearing.