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Swiss art dealer accused of murdering former British public schoolboy with a candlestick 'after hallucinating that he was an alien'

Alex Morgan
Alex Morgan

A British graduate was beaten to death with a candlestick at a drug-fuelled house party in Switzerland, a court heard on Monday, after his hallucinating friend thought he was “a green alien” who had to be killed.

Alex Morgan, a 23-year-old former pupil of Gordonstoun, Prince Charles’s Scottish boarding school, died in the early hours of December 30, 2014.

Morgan
Alex Morgan pictured with his mother, Katja Faber

His mutilated body was found at the home of Bennet von Vertes, a modern art dealer trading in works by Damien Hirst and Andy Warhol. Vertes, who met Morgan when the two were students at London’s Regent College, called the police to say that there was “a severely injured man” at his house. The 31-year-old has remained in custody ever since.

Bennet von Vertes
Bennet von Vertes

On Monday, at the start of his week-long trial, prosecutors told how, as a snowstorm raged outside, Vertes and Morgan partied alone while the rest of the Vertes family were away skiing.

Neighbours in the Kusnacht district – home to Tina Turner, famed for its expensive lake-view properties and low tax – said that the Porsche-driving Vertes was always polite and charming.

But the court heard how he had developed a drug addiction shortly after opening a gallery, following in his art dealer father’s footsteps.

On the night he invited Morgan to his home, Vertes “consumed alcohol, ketamine, cocaine and sleeping pills and went into a psychotic state with paranoid delusions,” the Swiss court in Meilen heard.

Swedish folk music was played but Morgan “had not liked the music”, it was said.

Alex Morgan
Alex Morgan

Vertes, who believed he had super powers at the time, thought the Briton had turned into a green alien who was trying to kill him, and believed they were “the last people on the planet”, the court heard.

Vertes is accused of stabbing Morgan with shards of glass from a smashed coffee table and striking him with a metre-long candlestick and a golden sculpture weighing 4lb. He then attacked Morgan with the candlestick, choking him to death.

Elmar Habermeyer, a psychiatrist, told the court that Vertes was thought to be hallucinating at the time, according to Swiss tabloid Blick.

Lawyers for Vertes are contesting the murder charge, on the grounds of insanity.

Morgan’s mother, Katja Faber, 53, was in court on Monday for the start of the trial. She has two other children but is separated from Morgan’s British financier father.

Morgan, born in the London borough of Richmond, studied for his A-levels in Switzerland, where his mother had moved.

“My darling Alex deserved to live a good, amazing life, to bring love, laughter and originality to this world - not to be bludgeoned to death,” she said.

“The pain just grinds on and on and on.

“A huge part of me was ripped violently out of my being when the police told me Alex had died, and that part has left such a gaping hole that sometimes it’s all I can do to keep breathing.”

In an unrelated case, Vertes is charged with raping a woman and will stand trial separately for this.

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