Man who heard ‘voices’ urging him to kill returned to prison

An East Timorese man who murdered his best friend after hearing “voices” urging him on, is being returned to prison after being told he must serve at least 10 years of his life sentence before he can be considered for release by the Parole Commissioners.

Tomas Hornay was being treated in south Belfast's Shannon Clinic, Northern Ireland's only secure mental health facility, while awaiting trial for murdering Luis Nazario Ximines in the Woodvale Park house they shared in Dungannon on August 1, 2013.

This morning Mr Justice Burgess said doctors reported that Hornay, whose remorse at killing his friend resulted in a severe decline in his mental condition, could now be safely returned to Maghaberry prison.

The Dungannon Crown Court judge said that Horney had never resiled away from the fact that he killed his friend, and fellow Moy Park workmate, admitting it from the outset and even going to police immediately afterwards to give himself up.

Mr Justice Burgess said that while Hornay accepts he is responsible for his friend’s death, and ‘made a clear decision to kill him, according to pre-sentence reports: “He continues to say that he was directed to kill the deceased by spirits or voices”.

In January,  Hornay was unanimously convicted of murder after the jury rejected defence arguements that at the time he was suffering from deminished responsibility or at least a loss of control after voices told him to kill his friend.

Mr Justice Burgess said that in the weeks before the murder, Hornay felt Mr Ximines insulted his wife, calling her a "puta", a bitch or worse, after seeing a Facebook photograph of her on a computer.

In the early hours, of August 1st,  2013, Hornay went to the kitchen to make breakfast, but could not get Mr Ximines out of his mind, although he had no plan to kill him.

But he then decided to do so because “he couldn’t take it anymore”, and the voices, or spitits were telling him to do so.

“He put chilli seeds into a glass of water and took the two knives from the kitchen. He went to the bedroom where he threw the water and chilli seeds over the deceased’s face, while he was still asleep, the intention being to blind him if he awoke”, added Mr Justice Burgess.

However, Mr Ximines did not get a chance to react and those sharing their room were wakened by scream as Hornay stabbed him a total of eight times, in the neck, chest and abdomen, which penetrated his heart, stomach and liver. They also severed his carotid artery, the combination of which caused his rapid death.

Police later recovered two kitchen knives from the blood-splattered bedroom, one of which had “a long narrow blade which was badly bent, almost into a U shape. The plastic handle of this knife had partially broken away. Fragments were found on the deceased’s bed”.

Consultant forensic psychiatrist Dr Adrian East, who leads the Shannon Clinic, told his trial that Hornay felt distressed and angered by the insults and in the month before the fatal attack, he'd trouble sleeping, and "spent all night thinking" about Mr Ximines.

“He stated that over that period he wanted to kill the deceased and he went onto say that he was experiencing several voices telling him to kill the deceased,” the psychiatrist.

On the day of the killing, Hornay told doctors he was getting ready to go to work at Moy Park factory where they both worked, but became “increasingly angry and began formulating a plan to harm the deceased” because “he couldn’t take it any more.”