Murder accused wanted friend to call him ‘Vamp’

THE trial of a British man who told police he drank his victim’s blood and ate part of his head heard yesterday of the deceased’s extensive injuries.

Thomas McKendrick, 21, was hit over the head with a hammer-like object and stabbed 42 times in the head, neck and body.

Allan Menzies, 22, of Fauldhouse, West Lothian, denies murdering Mr McKendrick on December 11 last year and burying him in a shallow grave.

Menzies offered a plea of guilty to culpable homicide for reasons of diminished responsibility, but the plea was rejected by the Crown at the start of his trial on Monday.

The jury at the High Court in Edinburgh has heard how Menzies told police he had drunk his victim's blood and ate part of his head.

On day two of the trial, pathologist Anthony Busuttil said the victim's injuries victim had been extensive and caused by a "multiplicity of weapons". He said the blows would have rendered the victim unconscious before he was stabbed with a heavy knife "possibly a bowie knife or a hunting knife".

He said he could not comment on whether the attack was frenzied, but said "it suggested a very prolonged and over-the-top assault with a blunt and a sharp weapon".

Earlier the court heard from a friend of Menzies, Stuart Unwin, who told how the accused had become fascinated with vampires in the weeks before the killing.

The witness said a news item about an old woman being killed by a man who drank her blood had aroused interest in Menzies in the weeks before Mr McKendrick's death.

The case had involved the killer removing the woman's heart and drinking her blood, Mr Unwin told the jury.

He said his friend's reaction to the killer had initially been that the perpetrator was a "bit of a fruitcake", but then Menzies had begun to display a "certain amount of respect for the guy".

Mr Unwin told the court "He said it would have been a waste if he had just killed her and hadn't drank her blood".

The witness said the two of them had chatted about the crime on three or four occasions in the weeks up to Mr McKendrick's disappearance.

Mr Unwin also said his friend had asked him to refer to him as "Vamp" instead of using his proper name in the period two months before the killing.

Mr Unwin told the court how Menzies would lose his temper while playing computer games with Mr McKendrick, when he would throw the control unit at the wall whenever he lost.

Mr Unwin denied having had anything to do with the disposal of the Mr McKendrick's body by removing it in a wheelie bin to woodland near Church Street in Fauldhouse.

The trial continues.