Man Sentenced for Brutal Murder of Caregiver: Hid Her Body in Flooded Home

A PARANOID schizophrenic has been jailed for a minimum of 12 years for strangling and beating his carer to death with a brick.

The attack was labelled in court as being a “brutal and motiveless” killing.

The 35-year-old has been sentenced to a minimum of 12 years in prison Credit: West Midlands Police/PA Wire Irene’s brutal death has left behind four children Credit: West Midlands Police/PA Wire

David Walsh, 35, was found naked and screaming by who forced entry into his Birmingham home on the night of June 22 last year.

A colleague of carer Irene Mbugua raised the alarm when he had not heard from her, Crown Court heard.

Walsh, who has previously been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, , , Asperger’s, learning difficulties and , had to be tasered by officers to bring him under control as he spat at and bit them.

Officers then returned to the address in Winson Green on June 23 where they found the , a mother-of-four, on the floor after removing a sofa that blocked the door to the kitchen.

The kitchen ceiling had partially collapsed on her body after a tap was left on in the bathroom above and flooded the property, Walsh’s sentencing hearing heard on Thursday.

The 46-year-old victim had been strangled and beaten about the head with a brick, which was found in a plastic bag in a bedroom, and had suffered a bleed on the brain and fractures to her skull and ribs.

Walsh told a forensic psychiatrist he had initially strangled his carer before hitting her 10 times with the brick and moving her body downstairs.

Prosecution counsel Michelle Heeley KC told the court Walsh, who had live-in carers stay with him in his home, had stopped taking anti-psychotic medication around three months before the fatal attack.

It is believed Ms Mbugua was killed on the evening of June 21, when screams coming from Walsh’s home were picked up on a nearby CCTV camera.

The day after, Walsh used his carer’s bank card in a local convenience store and while she lay dead on the floor at his home.

Neighbours said Walsh was “acting strangely”, grabbing their wrists and telling them to repent their sins and was also heard on CCTV saying: “We are free from death, we are free from pain, we have done what we have done.”

After his arrest, Walsh was not fit to be interviewed and was later charged with murder, but pleaded guilty to manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility on the second day of the trial at Warwick Crown Court in February this year.

Small amounts of cocaine had been found in his blood following his arrest.

Defence barrister Philip Bradley KC acknowledged the victim’s four children as he addressed the court.

He said: “For any child to lose their mother is an utter tragedy. For that mother to be lost in circumstances such as these makes a terrible situation all the worse.”

He added that Walsh had a “real fondness” for Ms Mbugua as she had “helped him so much”.

Sentencing Walsh, who sat in the dock wearing a dark jacket and a white top, to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 12 years, judge Mr Justice Wall KC said the killing had “devastating consequences” for Ms Mbugua’s family.

He said: “This was a brutal and motiveless killing. The victim was your live-in carer Irene Mbugua, who was employed to assist you because you had mental difficulties.

“You acknowledge how much help she provided you before you did what you did.

“The harm you caused this family is profound and lifelong.”

He added: “The fact you were able to avail yourself of a defence of diminished responsibility does not mean you bear no responsibility for your actions.”

The judge said Walsh had chosen to stop engaging with professionals and taking his medication, despite knowing it would lead to a deterioration in his mental state.

He said: “You voluntarily took illicit , cocaine, which were bound to have a destabilising effect on you.

“The fact they were present at all is troubling in the case of a man with your mental difficulties.”

He continued: “You realised what you had done after you had done it. You were not insensible to your actions. That is why you hid her body… and the brick you had used in the attack.

“You took advantage of what you had done by taking her bank card and using it to buy yourself things the next day.”

The judge said Walsh was also in breach of a suspended sentence for attempted robbery in 2021 when the killing happened.

He said: “Your victim was your care worker – she was killed while working and staying in your home and was therefore vulnerable.

“She must have been terrified in the moments leading up to her death.”

The judge accepted the “brutal and unexplained” attack was not premeditated, but said he had no doubt Walsh was a dangerous offender.

Walsh was also sentenced to four months to run concurrently for each of the four counts of assaulting an emergency worker he admitted to after leaving two officers with bite marks and another with bruising and a cut lip.

At the end of the sentencing hearing, the judge offered his “deepest condolences for the terrible loss that has been sustained” by Ms Mbugua’s family, adding: “It is unimaginable.”