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20/05/2011
DNA Evidence Catches Rogue RUC Inspector
A former police inspector has been successfully prosecuted for murder after advances in forensic science meant investigating officers were able to match his DNA with that found under the fingernails of the dead pensioner.
Annabella Symington was found dead at her south Belfast home and now, Kenneth Mark McConnell, 59, from Prospect Downs, Carrickfergus, who was a gambling addict, has been jailed for 18 years after he killed Annabella Symington in 1989.
Mrs Symington, 77, a widow living on her own in Willesden Park in south Belfast, was found dead on her dining room floor.
McConnell eventually admitted that through having an affair with her niece Margaret Fleming, he had discovered that she was rich and had gone to her house to beg for money to cover gambling debts.
However, the pensioner told him he was being "impertinent" by asking for cash and a struggle ensued, during which McConnell stuffed her cardigan sleeve into her mouth to stop her from screaming and it was this which suffocated her.
Mr Justice Hart said it had been a "brutal murder of an elderly lady who had quite properly refused to provide him with the means to continue to fund his addiction".
(BMcC/GK)
Annabella Symington was found dead at her south Belfast home and now, Kenneth Mark McConnell, 59, from Prospect Downs, Carrickfergus, who was a gambling addict, has been jailed for 18 years after he killed Annabella Symington in 1989.
Mrs Symington, 77, a widow living on her own in Willesden Park in south Belfast, was found dead on her dining room floor.
McConnell eventually admitted that through having an affair with her niece Margaret Fleming, he had discovered that she was rich and had gone to her house to beg for money to cover gambling debts.
However, the pensioner told him he was being "impertinent" by asking for cash and a struggle ensued, during which McConnell stuffed her cardigan sleeve into her mouth to stop her from screaming and it was this which suffocated her.
Mr Justice Hart said it had been a "brutal murder of an elderly lady who had quite properly refused to provide him with the means to continue to fund his addiction".
(BMcC/GK)
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