Killer detained after stabbing fellow murderer

The High Court in Edinburgh heard that Fisher admitted the attack in a 999 call. Picture: TSPL

Andrew Fisher inflicted 32 wounds to the head, neck and torso of Craig MacKenzie before abandoning the victim in his flat.

Fisher, 48, later made a 999 call to police and confessed to the killing.

Defence counsel Robert Anthony QC told the High Court in Edinburgh: “I don’t think I have come across a case with so many admissions to the offence.”

Schizophrenic Fisher, who was jailed for life in 1990 after murdering his wife, was released from prison in 2001 and spent 12 years in the community with only one driving conviction before killing 40-year-old Mackenzie at his home in Milton Street, in Edinburgh, on 5 July.

He was assessed as sane and fit to plead and admitted the killing when he appeared in court.

The Crown accepted his plea to the lesser charge of culpable homicide on the basis of diminished responsibility.

Advocate depute Stephen McCloy said: “The deceased also had a previous conviction for murder and met the accused while they were both in prison and whist they were carrying out voluntary work with the same charity.”

MacKenzie was jailed after he was convicted of the murder of David Edwards, 25, who was dug up from a shallow grave in Edinburgh’s Seafield Crematorium.

Mr McCloy said on the day of the fatal attack, MacKenzie had attended a meeting of a homeless charity where he was working. He then went home.

Part-time shop assistant Fisher had travelled into the city from his home in Musselburgh, in East Lothian, with his partner Sandra Whyte and went to help at a charity.

He later returned home and she noticed it looked as if he had been drinking.

The following day he phoned her and said he had “done something bad”.

He told her he had killed MacKenzie.

Minutes later he called emergency services and when police arrived he told them: “I’ve killed a guy called Craig, I don’t want to go on any longer.”

The victim’s blood was found on a jacket he had inside a holdall.

He was taken in a police van to show then the location.

Police forced entry to the house and found the victim’s body slumped over a bath. He had suffered defensive injuries to his hands as well as a catalogue of wounds including knife blows to the neck, which had cut carotid arteries.

Fisher told police he had heard voices before but not during the incident.

A psychiatrist who saw Fisher said that the offence would have been significantly influenced by his mental illness.

Lord Stewart heard that Fisher required to be detained in hospital in conditions of special security which can only be provided at the State Hospital at Carstairs.