A jury took just 27 minutes to find Brian Whitelock guilty of the murder of his kind-hearted neighbour Wendy Buckney, 71, who had tried to help the double killer
A double killer freed early from a life sentence because he was judged a “low risk” was today found guilty of murdering a kind-hearted neighbour who tried to help him.
Brian Whitelock, 57, was found guilty after a jury took just 27 minutes to decide he murdered retired generous riding school owner Wendy Buckney, 71.
Raging killer Whitelock shouted: “I hope you all suffer a brain injury” and “I hope you all rot” to the jury moments after they found him guilty.
Freed Whitelock moved in opposite Ms Buckney following his early release from prison – and she tried to help him adjust to the outside world.
A court heard she would employ him to do odd jobs in her house after telling her sister: “Everyone deserves a second chance.” She would pay him in money or food for tasks such as cutting her lawn or trimming her hedges after saying “it was important to keep him busy.”
The jury at Swansea Crown Court returned their verdict less than half an hour after retiring to deliberate. Whitelock turned angry after judge Mr Justice Griffiths asked him if he wanted a barrister to represent him at sentencing hearing next month.
Whitelock said: “What would be the point? What would be the f***ing point?” before facing the jurors and accusing them of laughing at him. He told them “I hope you all suffer a brain injury” and “I hope you all rot” before he was tackled by dock officers who led him away.
The court heard Whitelock brutally murdered Wendy in a horrific attack using a knife, table leg, and wooden shelf as well as sexually assaulting her. Whitelock was seen by neighbours leaving her home the following morning wearing only inside-out boxer shorts and covered in blood.
He told them “I’ve killed Wendy. I don’t know why, she was good to me.” A post mortem examination found “vulnerable” Ms Buckney – who suffered from mobility issues – had “too many” injuries for pathologists to count and flesh from her body was found on the walls and ceiling after the horror attack.
Whitelock admitted manslaughter claiming he was acting out of character due to two brain injuries and denied her murder in a quiet village saying it was “totally out of character”.
He told the jury during the trial: “Sorry doesn’t cover it.” But prosecutor Christopher Rees KC said his previous convictions for killing two men in 2001 showed he has a “propensity to use explosive and disproportionate violence” and there were similarities between the crimes.
Whitelock was convicted of murdering friend Nicky Morgan, 27, after battering him to death with a hammer and the manslaughter of his own brother Glenn in a fire as he tried to destroy the evidence of the killing.
Detective constable Paul Howells told the court that Whitelock had spent time in an open prison as official prepared to release him but was returned to “closed conditions” after a breach. Whitelock was subsequently tested in 2019 when his minimum term was up in what was known as an OASys review.
Whitelock, of Clydach, near Swansea, represented himself and pleaded not guilty to the murder Mrs Buckney but admitted manslaughter by reasons of diminished responsibility.
