Guilty, ex-soldier and his mother who murdered gran ‘for kicks’
A FORMER soldier murdered his 84- year- old grandmother with his mother ‘ for kicks’, their family said last night.
Barry Rogers, 33, used a pillow to smother Betty Guy after her 50-year-old daughter Penelope John had plied her with whisky and pills.
They claimed she had stomach and bowel cancer, and doctors accepted that she had died from natural causes so did not carry out a post-mortem examination.
But four years later an exgirlfriend of Rogers went to police after he told her he had killed his grandmother. Last night Rogers and John were facing life in prison after they were found guilty of murder at Swansea crown court.
Jurors were told the motive may never be known, but family members suggested a ‘weird’ relationship between the mother and son may partly explain the killing.
Relatives revealed a catalogue of violent behaviour by Rogers, including convictions for robbery.
His surviving grandmother said there was ‘something nasty and evil’ about him, adding: ‘I will be glad to get him out of society.’
The former lance corporal’s aunt Debra John, 51, said: ‘They did it for kicks, they did it because they could do it and thought they could get away with it … they enjoyed killing her together. They are not mentally stable.’ She added: ‘It made me sick to see them in court together. They treated it like a big joke … they were making licking signs to each other.’
Rogers’s ex- partner Sandra Adams said he had a ‘weird’ relationship with his mother.
‘They would have conversations about sex, things most people would never discuss with their parents,’ she said. ‘It would make me feel very uncomfortable, they were close … There have been suggestions their relationship was sexual and it would not surprise me.’
Mrs Guy was murdered at her home in Pembrokeshire in November 2011. But detectives began investigating only after Rogers’s ex-partner came forward with her concerns four years later. Miss Adams, who had a ten-month relationship with Rogers in 2015, said she went to police after being attacked by the ex- soldier, who said he was suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder.
‘Once we were arguing when he went for my throat,’ she said. ‘I had scratch marks all down my neck. I was shaking from head to toe but I managed to get away.
‘He was arrested for that but I foolishly dropped the charges when it went to court.’
After another attack, Miss Adams went to police with Rogers’s confession. This led detectives to two other ex-partners to whom he had confessed – Rhianne Morris, mother of his child, and Lisa Watkins. Miss Adams added: ‘He said he covered her face with a pillow, but what worried me was that he said she fought back.
‘I kept thinking that if she had asked to die or if she was that weak she wouldn’t have done that … Then it came out he had told his wife and another girlfriend … this horrible secret.’
Rogers’s paternal grandmother, Margaret John, said he had been convicted of armed robbery in his mid-teens after holding up a sweet shop in Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, using a knife.
His father – now living in Thailand after separating from Rogers’s mother – got him into the Army to ‘keep him out of trouble’. Mrs John added: ‘There is something nasty and evil about him – I disowned him years ago … it could have been me. I will be glad to get him out of society, he is creepy.’
She said he and his mother were fantasists and John had once lied that she had leukaemia.
The trial heard the pair were arrested and bailed in 2016, unaware police had bugged their home. In a recording Rogers is heard telling his mother: ‘A slip of a word here and we’re in deep s*** … in jail for life.’
Miss Adams, Miss Morris and Miss Watkins all gave evidence against their ex-partner.
John and Rogers are due to be sentenced tomorrow.
‘Enjoyed killing her together’