Youth who wanted to be vampire convicted of killing woman of 90

Art student, 17, found guilty of stabbing widow and drinking her blood in the hope that it would make him immortal

An art student was convicted yesterday of murdering a 90-year-old woman and drinking her blood in a vampire ritual that he thought would make him immortal.

Mathew Hardman, 17, was jailed for a minimum of 12 years after a jury unanimously concluded his obsession with vampires had led him to kill deaf, partially sighted Mabel Leyshon at her home in Llanfairpwll, Anglesey, last November.

Hardman stabbed Mrs Leyshon to death, then cut out her heart and drank her blood from a saucepan, thinking he would become a vampire.

He wept as the jury's verdict was returned, after less than two days' deliberation. Mr Justice Richards said the attack was "planned and carefully calculated" by a defendant whom he considered "of sound mind", though he thought Hardman was possibly disguising an undiagnosed psychiatric illness.

"I can make an allowance for a degree of confused thinking and immaturity, for some childish fantasising, but the fact remains this was an act of great wickedness and one that you have not faced up to and one for which you have not shown any remorse," the judge told Hardman. "You hoped for immortality, but all you have achieved is the brutal ending of another person's life and the bringing of a life sentence upon yourself."

Hardman was watched from the public gallery by a 17-year-old teenage German exchange student whom he had begged to bite his neck two months before the murder – an incident that provided some pointer to the crime he was about to commit. The student, who lived at lodgings with one of Hardman's friends, let him in when he arrived for a chat one night after finishing work at the Carreg Bran Hotel, where he worked as a waiter and kitchen porter.

The pair sat on the girl's bed and talked about gothic fashions, vampires, life after death and other paranormal subjects for several hours before Hardman accused her of being "one of them" – and begged her to bite his neck, so that he, too, could become a vampire.

He became violent, pressed his neck against her mouth and when her distressed cries were answered Hardman accused anyone in sight of being a vampire. He even deliberately punched himself on the nose to draw blood in a bid to "tempt" someone to bite him. As a police officer handcuffed Hardman, he repeatedly said: "Bite my neck".

Hardman's desire to bring this fantasy to life was what led him to kill Mrs Leyshon.

They had encountered each other often when, from the ages of 13 to 16, he earned £10 on a weekly paper round, which included visits to her bungalow. On several occasions, the houseproud pensioner, a talented landscape artist widowed for more than 40 years, politely reminded Hardman to shut the garden gate.

Mrs Leyshon, whose home was decorated with teddy bears left out as reminders to switch off the immersion heater or do chores, had few visitors. She had no children or close family and the only people who regularly came to see her were a former carer and a distant cousin who made weekly trips.

On the night of her death, a Saturday, Hardman donned gloves and walked the few hundred yards from his home to Ger-y-Twr, Mrs Leyshon's neatly kept home.

She was sitting in her favourite armchair, her back to the lounge door, watching television with the sound turned up because of her increasing deafness, and did not hear a thing as Hardman picked up a slate from her rockery, threw it through the bottom glass panel of the back door and bent down to ease himself into the kitchen.

He went into the living room and launched a ferocious attack on the widow with a knife he had taken from the kitchen of his home, stabbing her several times.

After the killing, he moved her body from her favourite armchair to a different chair and propped her legs on a stool. At some stage he arranged two brass pokers in the shape of a cross on the floor in front of the body, placed two candlesticks near the corpse and balanced a candle on the mantelpiece.

Two days after the killing, Hardman was questioned by officers making door-to-door inquiries. He told them he had been at a friend's home. He had typical teenage hobbies: computer games, television, pop music, art, reading magazines and drinking beer with his small circle of friends. Because he had no previous convictions, he appeared to have evaded capture.

Then police decided to publicise some of the macabre elements of Mrs Leyshon's death, including the ritualistic nature of the crime. Among 200 calls received by the murder squad were two from people who had heard rumours that a young man had been arrested for asking people to bite his neck.

Officers then searched Hardman's bedroom and found the Penguin edition of Bram Stoker's Dracula and two copies of the magazine Bizarre, which featured articles on how to cook and eat human flesh and how to create your own Black Mass. He had also clearly logged on to websites including The Vampire Rights Movement and The Vampire/Donor Alliance.

Also recovered were a kitchen knife that bore minute traces of Mrs Leyshon's blood and a pair of Levi trainers that matched the footprint found on the slate used to smash the bungalow window. The footwear had recently been put through the washing machine.

Hardman's coolness under police interrogation was reflected when, after three days of questioning, officers charged him and asked him if he wanted anything. A Big Mac and fries, he replied. In court, however, Hardman's persistent hand-wringing, deep breathing and facial twitch betrayed the nervousness of a defendant confronted by incriminating evidence.