The Press and Journal (Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire)
Man stabbed wife to death as sons slept
Court: Dad killed over paternity fear
A lecturer brutally stabbed his wife to death – because he wrongly believed he was not the father of their children.
Robert Kerr attacked 39year-old former Aberdeen University student Xin Xin Liu at their home at Newton Mearns near Glasgow.
The 39-year-old struck as his two sons slept upstairs.
A judge heard the mum suffered more than 70 wounds during the horrific killing in April
Kerr had originally faced a murder charge but prosecutors accepted his guilty plea to culpable homicide – on the grounds of diminished responsibility – when he appeared at the High Court in Glasgow.
It was accepted he was suffering from “an abnormality of the mind” at the time of the fatal attack.
The first offender will return to court for sentence in November.
Xin Xin moved to Scotland from China around 15 years ago to study law at Aberdeen University.
It was there she met Kerr, who was doing a computer course. They married in 2003.
Kerr was latterly a lecturer at West College Scotland in Paisley while Xin Xin was training to be a translator.
Weeks before the killing Kerr contacted his GP complaining of anxiety, insomnia and spoke about “paranoid feelings”.
On April 26 Kerr fatally attacked Xin Xin.
He then dialled 999 and admitted: “I have just killed my wife. I murdered her in a stabbing frenzy.”
Police discovered Xin Xin lying on the kitchen floor.
“I have just killed my wife. I murdered her”
Kerr then told police: “I found out tonight they were not mine.”
Advocate depute Jane Farquharson, prosecuting, said he had “suspicions” that a friend was the dad of his children.
But she added: “A paternity test has since confirmed that Robert Kerr is the biological father.”
The court heard yesterday that Kerr had since been receiving treatment at the State Hospital at Carstairs. One doctor concluded that his “ability to control his conduct” that night was “substantially impaired by reason of abnormality of mind”.
Judge Lord Boyd imposed an interim compulsion order for Kerr to remain at Carstairs.