CHAINSAW KILLER FOUND DEAD
AMAN serving a life sentence for the brutal murder of his own mother with a chainsaw has been found dead in prison.
Robert Owens admitted attacking 75-year-old Iris Owens with the power tool, as well as strangling and kicking her, in the garden of the home they shared in Ystrad Mynach in May 2016.
Owens, who was high on heroin, morphine and cocaine at the time of the incident, was given a life sentence in November 2016 after pleading guilty to murder .
The Ministry of Justice confirmed the 50-year-old died at Long Lartin Prison.
A spokesman said: “HMP Long Lartin prisoner Robert Owens died in prison on July 14, 2019.
“As with all deaths in custody there will be an independent investigation by the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman.”
Details of Mrs Owens’ death shocked the country in 2016. She was described as a “very well-educated” woman, was a published author and volunteered for several charities.
Neighbours told police they saw Mrs Owens, a retired history lecturer and charity worker, hanging out washing in the garden at her home on Nelson Street, Ystrad Mynach, shortly before her death on the evening of May 3, 2016.
At Owens’ sentencing hearing at Cardiff Crown Court in November of that year, it emerged the mother and son had lived together at the house since the death of Mrs Owens’ husband Haydn in 2004, and the end of Owens’ marriage in 2006.
The two were described as having a “close, loving and supportive relationship”.
The court heard Owens was cutting firewood when he claimed his mother had “gone berserk” and they argued. Neighbours told police they heard loud cries and the sound of a
chainsaw starting.
Owens called the emergency services himself at 5.21pm, and paramedics discovered him at the property in an agitated state with blood on his hands and clothing.
Mrs Owens was found lying on her back near a tree stump and was pronounced dead at the scene. Pathologists later found she sustained five separate contacts with the chainsaw and was strangled and kicked. Her cause of death was given as trauma to the head and neck.
When asked about his medical history, Owens had said he was a heroin addict and had last taken the drug at midnight.
Tests were later carried out and morphine, heroin and cocaine were all found in his system. In 2008, Owens, then 39, was sentenced to six-and-a-half years for his part in an eight-strong gang guilty of supplying Class A drugs.
He was also convicted in 2006 of heroin possession and was given a community order.
Judge Nicola Davies handed Owens a life sentence for his mother’s murder at Cardiff Crown Court on November 1, 2016, after he entered a guilty plea at an earlier hearing.
He was told he must serve a minimum term of 12 years and six months.
She told Owens: “Only you know what took place in the garden that afternoon and what prompted the brutal acts. Yours was a close, loving and supportive relationship. You accept that what you have done was ‘a terrible thing’.
“This was the tragic and senseless murder of a good mother by her son. There is only one sentence and that is life in prison.”
She added: “I accept that you are genuinely remorseful for the brutal acts you inflicted upon your mother.”
In a statement released through the police shortly after the sentencing, Mrs Owens’ daughter described her mother as a “fantastic mum and grandma”.
“Iris crammed so much into her life and into every waking moment but there was always something new and exciting that she wanted to do,” she said.
“Sadly we won’t find out what new direction she may have chosen and what new lovely friends she would have made along the way.
“Her family and friends can just give thanks for the life that she led and for the positive impact she had on so many of the people she met and who loved her for the amazing person that she was.”