Scot admits murdering grandmother in US home

A SCOT has pleaded guilty to killing his 80-year-old grandmother in the United States.

James Maguire-Clark, 24, smashed Eleanor Clark over the head with an ornament before repeatedly stabbing her in the neck. He was suffering from a mental illness at the time.

He faces a minimum 15 years in jail after admitting a reduced charge of second-degree murder before going to trial.

Maguire-Clark launched the assault on his grandmother in March last year at her home in Massachusetts. A local court heard Mrs Clark had picked up him from a train station on the day she was killed. They went to her nearby home and she was attacked shortly afterwards.

Maguire-Clark went to a neighbour's house with blood dripping from his right hand and splattered across his shirt. He told the neighbour he had sliced open his hand while cutting up a melon.

He was driven to hospital and checked in but left and took a taxi to friend's house. Once there, he confessed to killing his grandmother and said it was after he had got into an argument with her over a joke she had shared with his mother.

He hit her on the head with a ceramic statue and flipped when she slapped him back.

Maguire-Clark, who moved to the US when he was a boy, told the court he had studied at Aberdeen University, joining the Officers' Training Corps. He said he had worked as a chef but left after one year in the North-east and tried unsuccessfully to join the British Army. He also told the court he had spent time as a personal aide to an MP.