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| Gareth Wyn Jones murders David Lewis days after prison exit | Gareth Wyn Jones murders David Lewis days after prison exit |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| A heroin addict has been found guilty of murdering a man under a bridge just five days after coming out of jail. | A heroin addict has been found guilty of murdering a man under a bridge just five days after coming out of jail. |
| Gareth Wyn Jones hit "vulnerable" David Alun Lewis 100 times in the attack for his bank card pin. | |
| Musician Mr Lewis suffered 80 injuries before being strangled and left in the River Taff, Cardiff Crown Court heard. | |
| Jones, 28, had only just been released from half of a six-year sentence for stabbing his girlfriend in the head with a fork. | |
| After stealing £50 mentally ill Jones used blood-stained money to pay for a drugs binge before attempting to withdraw money with the victim's card. | |
| The court heard Jones, who had fantasised about killing someone before, picked out Mr Lewis as easy prey at a hostel - just 90 minutes before killing the Ystrad Mynach singer-songwriter. | |
| 'Vulnerable' | |
| Mr Lewis, who has previously been described as "vulnerable, fairly quiet and a bit of a loner", spent the greater part of his life fighting anxiety, depression and alcohol and stayed in hostels in Cardiff from time to time. | |
| His battered body was found underneath the Taff Embankment Bridge in Cardiff on 19 March. | |
| Mr Coughlin said CCTV showed the defendant walking away afterwards as if "nothing had happened". | |
| Two attempts to withdraw money from Mr Lewis's account were made a few hours later. | |
| Prosecution counsel Vincent Coughlin said: "This was clearly a calculated killing done for gain." | |
| Jones had pleaded guilty to manslaughter, but denied murder on the grounds of diminished responsibility. A jury unanimously found him guilty. | |
| Earlier in the case Mr Coughlin asked the jury: "How did the defendant get the pin number after he had stolen the card? A more sinister explanation - he extracted the number in the course of the killing on the Taff Embankment. | |
| "The deceased received 80 blunt force injuries to the head, 20 to the neck as well as other injuries. These were a sustained series of assaults... not a single a fatal blow. It must have taken some time for all these injuries to be inflicted." | |
| Feigning illness | |
| Following the killing, the court heard Jones had thrown away his bloodstained clothing before feigning illness and was taken to hospital. | |
| Jones, who has been on remand at Liverpool's maximum security psychiatric hospital Ashworth, had claimed he had been hearing voices on the day in question. | |
| However forensic psychiatrist Philip Joseph said that while Jones had severe borderline personality disorder, he was convinced the defendant had never suffered "true auditory hallucinations". | |
| The prosecution said Jones would have been well-placed to make up symptoms "to suit his own ends" because of his prior experience with psychiatrists. | |
| Jurors also heard the details of Jones's traumatic childhood, which one mental health expert described as the worst he had heard in his career. | |
| Jones will be sentenced on Thursday. |