Millionaire who stabbed wife to death in front of son, ten, tries to kill new wife at age 80
A MILLIONAIRE who stabbed his wife to death as their ten- year- old son begged him to stop tried to kill a woman who married him after visiting him in jail.
Engineer Peter Horbury was tried for murder in 1992 after attacking his wife Caroline.
He served just ten years in prison before remarrying, but last October, at 80, he attacked his new wife with a club, a meat cleaver and a knife and left her for dead.
Horbury, who has advanced dementia, was ruled unfit to plead, and is likely to be sectioned after a jury took 16 minutes yesterday to find him responsible for the attempted murder of Patsie, 78.
Only afterwards were jurors at Preston Crown Court told by Judge Graham Knowles QC of Horbury’s conviction for murdering Caroline, a nurse.
Horbury was jailed for life in 1992 and his wife’s family raised Daniel.
Four years into his sentence, Horbury met divorced midwife Sin Lin Lyen, known as Patsie, and they wed after his release in 2002.
The couple retired to Kirkby Lonsdale in Cumbria, where they attended the local church.
However, early on October 26 last year Horbury was seen covered in blood, staggering down the road carrying a meat cleaver and a knife.
He flagged down driver Hamish Keltie, telling him: ‘I have killed my wife.’ Mr Keltie, 31, followed Horbury into his flat where his wife lay butchered in a pool of blood.
He said: ‘Her top half was covered in blood and her arms were in a state I have never seen.
‘There were chunks missing and her head was completely unrecognisable. I could not tell if it was intact. I can only describe it looked like a butcher’s scene.
‘Apart from seeing her stomach going up and down, there was no way of telling she was alive.
‘Some of the wounds looked like they had been done over the course of three or four hours.’
He said Horbury was more concerned about who was going to care for their poodle, adding: ‘I was amazed at how relaxed Peter
‘Her survival was touch and go’
was.’ Mrs Horbury was rushed to hospital with shocking injuries, including a broken jaw, eye socket, skull and nose, and he was charged with attempted murder.
Charles Brown, prosecuting, said: ‘It is not clear and to what degree he had dementia. He inflicted such traumatic injuries, her survival was touch and go even with the best medical care.’
Because Horbury could not plead, a jury was asked to decide whether he had carried out the attack, which began with him beating her about the head with a wooden club he used to kill fish. In a police video, Mrs Horbury, who did not attend court, said they had been married happily for 13 years, and he had never hit her.
She added: ‘He was already in bed. I must have kissed him goodnight. I looked around and he bashed me on the head twice. I was shocked when he hit me. I don’t understand why.’
She said she screamed for help and tried to protect herself with a chair, but couldn’t remember anything after that.
Horbury butchered her with the cleaver and a chopping knife as she lay unconscious on the floor, cutting off part of her finger. She said his behaviour had become strange weeks before the attempted murder, but he refused to go to the doctor.
Back in 1992, Horbury claimed he was provoked to attack Caroline, his second wife, when she said he was not Daniel’s father.
Then 55, Horbury flew into a rage, repeatedly stabbing the 47year-old in the neck as their distraught son dialled 999 and begged police to come to the house in Mamhilad, Pontypool.
In a 999 call played to the jury, Daniel was heard saying: ‘Dad have you killed her? You have done enough to me and my mum. You are not going to do any more. Have you killed her?’
Daniel later sued Horbury for £49,000 and changed his surname. He is understood to have had no contact with him since.
His aunt Meriel, 82, who raised him, said he had become a successful businessman, and was married with a child.
At the time of his trial in 1992, Horbury was accused of driving his first wife, Della, to an early death after leaving her and their two daughters penniless.
He will be sentenced under the Mental Health Act on April 20.