Life for using head as bowling ball

AN Australian man was sentenced to life in prison for murdering a teenager who was stabbed 133 times and then decapitated in an alcohol-fuelled argument.

The man’s head was used as a bowling ball.

A Supreme Court jury issued the sentence after finding James Roughan, aged 28, guilty of the 2005 murder of 17-year-old Morgan Shepherd.

A second defendant, Christopher Jones, was serving a life sentence.

Shepherd was killed after getting into an argument with Roughan and Jones during a drinking session at Roughan’s home, prosecutor David Meredith told the court during the trial.

Jones told friends that Roughan used the head like a puppet and a bowling ball. Several witnesses testified that they overheard Jones and Roughan boasting about the killing.

The jury in Brisbane took less than a day to find Roughan guilty of the March 29, 2005 murder.

It was the second time Roughan has been found guilty of the murder.

He and co-offender Christopher Clark Jones, aged 24, were both sentenced to life imprisonment in April last year after being found guilty after a lengthy trial. Roughan appealed against the verdict in the Court of Appeal in Brisbane and won a retrial in December last year.

At the start of the second trial he pleaded guilty to one count of interfering with a corpse and to a charge of accessory to murder after the fact. However, the crown proceeded with the murder trial, presenting evidence that was accepted by the jury.

During the eight-day trial the court was told Shepherd’s body was found in a shallow grave near Dayboro, northwest of Brisbane, on April 1, 2005. The teenager died after being stabbed more than 133 times, and his head had been sawn off.

After killing Shepherd the pair enlisted a friend to help dispose of the body, and later drove back to Dayboro to bury it more carefully.

Three people have already been sentenced for helping to dispose of the corpse.