Sponsored by
Killer son's chilling last moment before horror leap from North Bridge
CALDERDALE'S most gruesome killer had stopped taking his anti-psychotic medication before he plunged to his death.
Stewart Dawson was heard laughing as he jumped from a flyover – the same spot he had leapt from 15 years earlier after butchering his mother, Angela, at their home in Mixenden, Halifax.
An inquest into the 36-year-old's death yesterday was told he was found dead near Old Lane, Halifax, in August. Minutes earlier he had been seen on the dual carriageway high above North Bridge.
Daniel Knapton, 16, called police after seeing Mr Dawson falling, Halifax Coroner's Court heard. The teenager said all the way down Dawson made "strange laughing noises".
Tests showed in the days before he died Dawson had not taken the medication prescribed for his paranoid schizophrenia.
After police found the mutilated body of devout Christian Mrs Dawson stuffed under his bed, her son had been sentenced to life at Rampton high-security mental hospital.
Religious notes scrawled by Dawson were found scattered through the house they shared.
After her murder, Dawson had leapt from the flyover dressed only in his underpants and dressing gown in an apparent suicide bid – but hit the roof of a building 60 feet below and survived.
The inquest heard Dawson's mother had been worried about her son and had tried to get him to see a doctor before she was killed.
In 2001 Dawson was moved to medium-secure hospital Newton Lodge in Wakefield, where he stayed until being discharged to a hostel in 2002.
After 2004 he was no longer required to see psychiatrists, but continued to receive care from them on a voluntary basis.
Consultant psychiatrist David Hargreaves said: "Mr Dawson was regarded as making a full recovery of the symptoms of his illness."
Dawson continued to receive medication but stopped attending voluntary meetings with forensic psychiatrists last year, instead asking for his care to be supervised by his GP.
His doctors told the inquest the only time concern for Dawson had been raised was when he failed to pick up a prescription in June – two months before he died.
But when contacted, he collected the tablets.
Dawson's father Charles, told the inquest he had been to his son's home in Huddersfield after his death and found quotes from the Bible around the house.
"When Stewart's state of mind was stable he was houseproud and tidy. What met me at Stewart's was a hovel," he said.
He told the inquest his son had stopped speaking to him a few months before he died because he had threatened to tell his fiancee – a woman from the Czech Republic – that he had killed his mother. The engagement was broken off before Dawson's death and the woman returned to her home country.
Police are believed to have carried out painstaking checks to make sure she and the rest of Dawson's family were safe when they discovered he had jumped from the flyover again in case he had committed another murder.
Dawson had disembowelled his mother as well as cutting off parts of her body and gouging out her eyes.
What was thought to be human flesh was found on the stove in the kitchen.
Detectives found Mrs Dawson's body in a cupboard under his bed. Part of an arm and leg were missing and never recovered.
Officers also recovered the body of Dawson's collie, which had gone missing days before.
He had strangled it and cut out its tongue.
Coroner Roger Whittaker recorded a verdict that Dawson took his own life while his mind was unbalanced.
Email to a friend
Print this page- A58 crash UPDATE: road now re-open after man hit by car earlier this morning
- Crash on the A58 in Halifax this morning UPDATE: Man in hospital with several broken bones
- Taxi worker dies aged 35 after finishing his shift
- Man suffers serious injuries in accident on M62
- How the new Halifax Central Library will look
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Halifax
Saturday 11 February 2012
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: -1 C to 0 C
Wind Speed: 8 mph
Wind direction: South west
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 2 C to 4 C
Wind Speed: 9 mph
Wind direction: North west
