Man beheaded woman thinking she was Hitler

A deranged man was caught on CCTV beheading a grandmother with a machete in her back garden during a 45-minute rampage.

Nicholas Salvador, 25, had already beheaded two cats and was searching neighbouring gardens for more to kill, believing them to be “demons”, when he came across 82-year-old Palmira Silva, the court heard.

In his demented state, the paranoid schizophrenic killed Silva believing she was either Hitler back from the dead or a demon in the guise of a human.

Before the killing on September 4 last year, Salvador had been staying with friends three doors away from Silva in Nightingale Rd, Edmonton, north London.

At 1pm, he armed himself with the large knife and a wooden pole. He killed the two family pets before making his way through a few back gardens.

He then went into an alleyway that ran alongside Mrs Silva’s home where he came across the victim.

Video footage taken from a police helicopter overhead showed Mrs Silva, wearing a pinny over a dark skirt and white blouse, approaching the bare-chested Salvador over her garden wall. After a brief exchange, Salvador vaulted into her well-tended flower bed and stabbed her repeatedly before cutting her head off, the court heard.

Salvador denies murder by reason of insanity.

The trial continues.