A man “fixated” on the idea his partner of 32 years had been having an affair beat her to death after she ended their relationship. Colin John Milburn, 52, waited for partner Buddug Jones to be at home alone before going into the home and killing her – probably with a hammer. She died of traumatic head injuries following the attack on April 22 this year.
Prosecutors at Milburn’s murder trial said he had become “fixated” with the idea that Ms Jones, 48, was having an affair. When she ended their three-decade relationship he waited for her to be alone at home then killed her. A pathologist said the most likely weapon used in the attack was a hammer, NorthWalesLive reports.
Milburn claimed he only found her body and rushed outside to get help from the neighbours. He said he didn’t know how she died and still loved her. But a jury of nine men and three women took six and a half hours to reach an 11-1 majority verdict finding him guilty after an 18-day trial. Milburn showed no reaction as the jury foreman announced the verdict.
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Judge Rhys Rowlands told Milburn: “You have been found guilty by the jury of what was a devastating attack on your partner, the late Buddug Jones, as she lay helpless in her bed in her home.” On the day Ms Jones was found dead in bed Milburn insisted he had come to his former family home in Maes Gwelfor in Rhydwyn, near Holyhead, to collect washing but noticed their family dogs were outside. The back door was also open which was unusual, he claimed.
He said he went inside the house and shouted for Ms Jones but when he got no answer he said he went upstairs and found her bloodstained body. He said he panicked and nearly fell down the stairs as he went outside to raise the alarm. Neighbour Huw Jones, who had been minding his own grandchildren across the road, told the court Milburn had knocked on his door and said: “Come” in Welsh. He agreed Milburn was “hysterical”.
The jury heard Mr Jones and Milburn went into Ms Jones’ house and upstairs to her bedroom. Mr Jones said he could see the top half of her body and the rest was under the duvet. He said Milburn said in Welsh: “She’s had a belting.”
But the jury heard Milburn was fixated with the idea that Ms Jones was having an affair despite her “nine years of denials”. After going up to the body with a neighbour he drove off “like a madman” to get his son but came back later.
When Milburn returned to the cul-de-sac a police officer asked him to sit in a police car. He was later arrested on suspicion of murder.
He told police: “I’ve done nothing wrong,” before being driven to the custody suite in Caernarfon police station. Ambulance worker Kieran Thomas arrived and took life support equipment with him upstairs to Ms Jones’ bedroom.
He found her lying on her right-hand side on the bed with a significant amount of blood and splatter on the head rest. He noticed blood spatter by her head and probably about a metre above where she was lying at a “surprising height”.
Another senior paramedic said there was a three-inch-wide “hole rather than a slash” in Ms Jones’ head. The jury heard that Dr Brian Rodgers, a Home Office pathologist, conducted a post-mortem examination into the grandmother’s death at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital.
He also identified four separate blows to the head by a blunt object although there could have been five if one had been in the same wound. She died extremely quickly due to a rush of blood to the brain stem. He said there had been “severe blunt force blows” to the head, probably by a hammer, and concluded she would have died “in less than a minute”.
Injuries to Ms Jones’ left hand were consistent with her raising her hand to protect the head but it could also have been a reflex. Just one blow could have been sufficient to render her unconscious, the jury heard. Milburn will be sentenced at Mold Crown Court on November 28.
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