‘Resentful’ son killed mum and partner then went on tour of Britain
A ‘HIGHLY intelligent’ IT worker strangled his mother and bludgeoned her partner to death before setting off on a tour of Britain, a court heard yesterday.
The bodies of Dr Premm Monti, 51, and Robert Tully, 71, lay undiscovered for a week at her gated home in the village of Branston, Lincolnshire.
A jury was told that ‘resentful’ son Andrei-Mihai Simion-Munteanu, 22, had killed them before driving Mr Tully’s car to Salisbury, Wiltshire.
He then headed to Stonehenge and Tintagel Castle in Cornwall before driving north through Wales and into Scotland, where he was found after his mother had been reported missing.
Dr Monti, a former NHS governor, had failed to turn up for work at a psychiatric clinic, while efforts to trace Mr Tully also failed.
Police traced his Toyota Rav4 using automatic number plate recognition cameras to Aberdeen airport, where Simion-Munteanu was found lying down inside, Lincoln Crown Court heard.
Michael Auty, prosecuting, said: ‘He was asked if he knew where his mother was. He replied that they should probably talk about this at a police station.
‘The defendant said if he told them where his mother was they would arrest him. PC Simon Madden asked why. The defendant then immediately volunteered that he had killed his mother.’
The court heard that Dr Monti was reported missing from work in Dudley, West Midlands. Police there asked their counterparts in Lincolnshire to visit the doctor’s address but it was only when they returned three days later, after tracing her son, that the two bodies were discovered inside the unlocked bungalow.
Simion-Munteanu went on to confess in detail how he lured his mother into his bedroom and placed an oven glove over her mouth and strangled her on the night of July 28 last year, the jury was told.
In the morning when Mr Tully awoke and could not find his partner, the defendant told him to look in the kitchen then repeatedly hit the American over the head with a hammer, fracturing his skull.
The jury has been told that Simion-Munteanu admits the killings but denies murder.
The defendant had failed his final exams at Lincoln University, where he was studying for a degree in computer studies, and had been diagnosed with depression, having previously spent time in a psychiatric hospital in the US while working there.
His defence team say he is guilty of manslaughter through diminished responsibility, but jurors were told a psychiatrist instructed by the prosecution had concluded Simion-Munteanu had carried out the killings because he was angry and resentful towards his mother.
Dr Philip Joseph also found the defendant had a complete lack of empathy towards his victims, the court heard.
Simion-Munteanu, of Branston, denies two counts of murder. The trial continues.