A man who executed a mother-of-three with a bolt gun in front of her daughters has been jailed for at least 20 years.
John McFarlane was told he must serve at least 20 years in jail for the “clinical” murder of 38-year-old Irishwoman Mary Griffiths.
Hours before the murder in May this year, Dublin-born Ms Griffiths had contacted police to voice her fears that the 40-year-old, a former friend, was stalking her.
Later that night he smashed through the back door of her home in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, with an axe as she and her daughters slept.
He shut down the house lights before charging up the stairs and burst in just as she turned on the bedroom lamp.
McFarlane dragged Ms Griffiths from the room, where she had been sleeping with her 10-year-old daughter, before beating and trying to strangle her.
The mother screamed for help as she was attacked and managed to get outside where her 13-year-old girl shouted “don’t do it, stop it,” as McFarlane shot her.
A neighbour described what he saw as “clinical, deliberate, and like an execution” and how he also knocked the teenager to the ground with the weapon.
The killer later texted a friend to say he had done it to teach her a lesson, before slashing his arms in an apparent suicide attempt.
McFarlane pleaded guilty to murder at Ipswich Crown Court last week and was sentenced today at the Old Bailey.
Mr Justice Bean told him “three generations of Mary Griffiths’s family have suffered a tragic and devastating loss.
“Her children have been deprived of a loving and and caring mother.
“Her parents have had to endure the appalling experience of attending the funeral of their own daughter.”
PA