Murdered... by horseshoe
Train passenger killed in argument over loud music
A MAN who killed a golf greenkeeper with a horseshoe was convicted of murder last night.
Kirkpatrick Virgo, 42, attacked Thomas Parker, 24, in an argument over loud music in a train carriage.
It started when Thomas’s 27-year-old brother Craig told one of Virgo’s friends to turn his portable speaker down.
Virgo joined in the row and asked his victim, who was with friends: ‘Do you want to die tonight?’ Two off- duty police officers intervened as Virgo directed the homophobic slur ‘batty boy’ at Craig.
The two groups were kept at separate ends of the carriage but Virgo was ‘psyched up’ and showed an ‘air of menace’.
He followed Thomas when they left the train at Reading station and attacked him with the horseshoe. Giving evidence in his own defence, Virgo told Reading Crown Court: ‘I bought it in an antique shop as a lucky charm. I bought it to put it on the door and I just did not get around to putting it up.
‘I thought I was going to be attacked, that is why I removed it (from my bag).’
But prosecutor Tahir Khan said the lucky charm story was ‘ridiculous’. The KC asked the jury: ‘Is he seriously telling you he had the horseshoe in his rucksack for more than 18 months because he never got round to putting it up on his door?’
Describing the attack last July, Craig told the court: ‘It happened so quickly – Tom was on the floor in front of me.’
He pursued Virgo through the station and got him in a
‘Bought as a lucky charm’
bear hug because he ‘did not want to let him go’.
After Virgo was detained Craig returned to find his brother surrounded by paramedics who were unable to save his life. The court was told that Thomas died from a massive head injury and had gone into cardiac arrest.
Virgo, from Slough, admitted manslaughter and carrying an offensive weapon, but denied murder. A jury returned a guilty verdict after deliberating for nearly four hours yesterday. Virgo will be sentenced tomorrow.