Man who killed three pensioners 'believed they were paedophiles'

A man with a history of mental illness killed an 80-year-old with a hammer and then, hours later, 84-year-old twins with a spade in the deluded belief that they were members of a paedophile ring, a jury has heard.

Alexander Lewis-Ranwell, 28, from Croyde, north Devon, who had paranoid schizophrenia, denies murdering Anthony Payne and twins Dick and Roger Carter at their respective homes in Exeter in February.

Richard Smith QC, prosecuting, said Lewis-Ranwell suffered from delusions. “One delusion he was suffering from on 10 February when he killed was that they were in some way involved in an undercover and long-standing paedophile ring,” he said.

The jury at Exeter crown court heard that none of the three were involved in any such thing.

It emerged in court that Lewis-Ranwell was arrested by police twice in the days before the killings, on one occasion after attacking a farmer with a rusty saw.

He was released and on the afternoon of Sunday 10 February he was on his own walking around the streets of Exeter, the court heard.

“At about 12.30pm his wanderings took him down Bonhay Road in the St David’s area of the city,” Smith told the jury. He said Lewis-Ranwell stopped at No 65, a rundown terrace house where Payne lived.

“The defendant stopped at Mr Payne’s house and read a note on the door which spoke about the occupant being an elderly man of 80 years of age,” said Smith.

“The defendant went in through the front door. He found or followed Mr Payne upstairs to a bedroom where the defendant took a hammer and bludgeoned Mr Payne to death with blows to the head. Moments later, the defendant was back out and walking the streets again.”

Smith went on: “About two and three-quarter hours later, the defendant was by then walking down Cowick Lane in the St Thomas area of the city, about one and a half miles from where the first killing had taken place.

“At 109 Cowick Lane lived the elderly Carter twin brothers. Rather like 65 Bonhay Road, it had the appearance of being unkempt and rundown. One of the Carter brothers ushered the defendant out of the property when he tried to get in through the front gates. Undeterred, this defendant went around the back of the house and scaled a wall.

“He took up a spade from the garden and went into the Carter brothers’ house. Once inside, the defendant beat both brothers to death with blows to the head from the spade.”

After the attacks, Lewis-Ranwell visited pubs in Exeter before sleeping rough by the old castle in the city centre. At about 5am on Monday 11 February he went to the Rougemont hotel where he carried out a violent but non-fatal attack on a night porter, Smith said. Police were called and he was Tasered and arrested.

Smith added: “There is no dispute in this case that the defendant killed all three elderly men. These circumstances are not in dispute and are agreed.”

The prosecutor said Lewis-Ranwell had a history of mental illness, which was treated with medication, but when he did not take his medication he became unwell. Smith said Lewis-Ranwell had paranoid schizophrenia and suffered delusions.

The trial judge, Mrs Justice May, told the jury that Lewis-Ranwell had denied the murders of the three pensioners on a “special basis” – by reason of insanity.

She told them: “The question you are going to be asking yourselves on each of the three counts of murder: Is it more likely or not that when he killed each of the three men, Alexander Lewis-Ranwell did not know what he was doing was against the law?

“If your verdict is yes, you will find him not guilty by reason of insanity. If the answer is no, you will find him not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter.”

The trial continues.