Truth of Patrick McGee’s murder by Filipino immigrant revealed

On July 27, 2009, seven months and 12 days after the murder and beheading of Patrick McGee in his home in Manchester, England, a murder that the media and the people of Britain all but ignored, the facts of the murder have finally been released. (VFR’s earlier articles on the McGee beheading and the police and media cover up of it are listed here.)

It turns out that the case is remarkably similar to the Greyhound beheading in Canada. A recent nonwhite immigrant from an Asian/Pacific country, not a Muslim (though we’re not sure of that in the Canadian case), goes crazy and stabs to death with multiple stab wounds to the chest a resident of his new country who happens to be in his vicinity, then beheads the body. Afterwards the killer is sentenced to mental hospital. And I believe it is likely that the British authorities and media covered up the facts for so long because of the striking resemblances to the Canadian beheading, which had taken place just a few months before McGee’s murder. The blogosphere, at least, heard about the murder and beheading of Tim McLean by Vince Weiguang Li. It never heard about the murder and beheading of Patrick McGee by Eric Fernandez Cruz.

And now we even have a photo of Mr. McGee.

Patrick McGee, died Dec. 15, 2008
Cause of death: mass non-European immigration

He’s not some broken down pensioner, not just some pleasant, gentle, almost doddering old man as the media made him appear in its minimalist coverage of the story, as though in a deliberate effort to downgrade the importance of his death, but a tough looking fellow with a determined look on this face, almost a roughneck, and seemingly on the tall side. Also, his features belie his prototypical Irish name. He looks not so much Irish as Engish, with a long, bony face.

Note also that the fact that McGee was killed by a recently arrived Filipino immigrant was covered up by the Mail, the only national paper that published its own story on the murder. In its initial, December 16, article, the Mail said the suspect was Filipino. Then the Mail withdrew that article and replaced it with another article on December 17 that had no mention of the suspect’s nationality. It was only by sheerest happenstance that a small website in England happened to have preserved the original December 16 story, which was discovered by a VFR reader in England, that we discovered this and other significant differences between the Mail’s original and its revised, bowdlerized coverage. The short of it is that it was not until months after the murder that the public was even informed that the killer is a Filipino.

Further, this latest news on the case has not been provided by Britain’s national media, but by the Manchester Evening News, a local (or regional) newspaper. VFR has stayed on top of the MEN’s coverage with the vital assistance of Karen in England.

Here is the story from the Manchester Evening News:

Man detained after beheading
Paul Britton
July 27, 2009

A PARANOID schizophrenic who stabbed then decapitated his next-door neighbour has been detained under the Mental Health Act.

Paranoid schizophrenic Eric Fernandez Cruz, 32, who was described as a deeply religious biology graduate, ‘heard voices in his head’ telling him to kill Patrick McGee, Manchester crown court was told.

The father-of-two, who was born in the Philippines, thought retired hospital worker Mr McGee posed a threat to the life of his newborn son.

The court heard Cruz, a biology graduate, armed himself with a ten inch-long kitchen knife then stabbed devout Catholic Mr McGee, 64, 17 times in the hallway and front room of his semi-detached house on Parkhill Avenue, Crumpsall, after he answered a knock at the front door.

Cruz, the court heard, then hacked off Mr McGee’s head and placed it alongside the knife inside a wheelie bin in the pensioner’s front garden.

Ray Wigglesworth QC, prosecuting, said Cruz called police within minutes in a ‘calm and lucid manner’ and told a control room operator what he had done.

A young police officer then found Mr McGee’s severed head in the bin with his glasses still on last December, the court was told.

Cruz, who moved with his wife, a nurse, to live in Manchester in October 2005, denied a charge of murder but pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

Cruz will be detained under the Mental Health Act at Prestwich Hospital. Flanked by security guards in the dock, he spoke only to confirm his name and plead guilty to the charge.

His not guilty plea to murder was accepted by the Crown.

No emotion

Cruz showed no emotion as the details of the ‘tragic’ case were read out to the court and Mr McGee’s brother, John, and John’s wife, Celia.

He was sectioned after the killing then diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.

The court heard Cruz moved to Parkhill Avenue in May 2007. Mr McGee—described by his family as caring and gentle—had retired as a maintenance worker at nearby North Manchester General Hospital and lived alone next door, a house which had belonged to his parents.

The court heard there was no history of arguments or violence between the two neighbours until the day of the killing.

Mr Wigglesworth said: “For some reason the defendant and his wife did not entirely get on with Mr McGee. They felt he was intrusive and he had a number of remarks of gossip to make about the people who lived there before him.”

Earlier in the day the two had an argument and Cruz punched Mr McGee in the face, knocking him to the floor. The attack was not reported.

Mr Wigglesworth said: “Neighbours asked him what happened but he refused to say what had caused his fall to the ground.”

Neighbours then heard Cruz and his wife chanting “voodoo, voodoo” outside their home, he added.

Cruz then launched his attack later that night.

Mr Wigglesworth said: “He stabbed him 13 times in the chest, the in the stomach then in the back. They were delivered with severe force.

“The brutal manner of the attack forced him from the hallway into his sitting room then onto the floor. The defendant then used the knife to hack through the victim’s neck and completely severed the head from the body.

“He carried the severed head from the house and placed it into Mr McGee’s wheelie-bin at the front of his house.”

Cruz then reported his crime and pointed the officer in the direction of the wheelie-bin.

Mr Wigglesworth said Cruz went on to tell police that he heard a voice in his head telling him to kill Mr McGee, who had also worked for 20 years from Manchester city council’s parks department. He leaves three brothers and a sister.

Cruz, who worked as a warehouseman at Argos in Trafford Park, had a 17-month old son Noah at the time of the killing. The court heard he was a parishioner at St Anne’s RC Church in Crumpsall and had earlier confided in a priest that he heard voices.

Two days before the killing, the court heard, he threw himself to the floor during a service and began ‘sobbing and wailing’. Mr Wigglesworth said Cruz ‘heard someone calling his son’s name’ and believed Mr McGee was going to kill his son.

Dr Josanne Holloway said he had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and suffered from ‘delusions that made him bound to act beyond his control’.

She said: “He really believed that Patrick was out to harm his family.”

He could not grasp what was real and what was not real. His grasp with reality was very tenuousDr Josanne Holloway

The court heard Cruz, who was described as a ‘very intelligent’ man with no previous convictions, had ‘grand designs’ of being a judge, a policeman or a politician and believed religious Saints would talk to him.

The doctor added: “He could not grasp what was real and what was not real. His grasp with reality was very tenuous.”

He had an unshakeable belief that Patrick McGee was going to kill his son. Tragically, it seems like Mr McGee was a very friendly person.

“He was quite pleasant when the Cruz’s became neighbours. It is a tragedy that it was Mr McGee’s friendliness that fed into his delusions.”

The court heard his family have returned to the Philippines. Mr McGee’s brother John left court without commenting but in a statement read out to court he said the family’s lives had been devastated. He said he spoke to him just hours before his death.

He said: “The fact that Patrick has been killed and the way that he was killed has deeply affected the extended family. “It is hard to accept. I will never be the same man.”

Senior Investigating Officer Vinny Chadwick said: “This is a tragedy for the family of Mr McGee, who have lost someone they knew to be kind and gentle, a danger to no one. These events were extremely upsetting for everybody involved and, although it will never change what happened, I hope that today offers some form of closure.”

Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 31, 2009 02:18 PM | Send