A 26-year-old man has been found guilty of raping and murdering a pensioner who he smothered after breaking into her home.
Craig Keogh, who walked victim Jane Hings’ dog, prised her wedding and engagement rings from her fingers after taking about four minutes to suffocate her with a pillow.
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Jurors at Birmingham Crown Court spent about four hours deliberating before unanimously convicting the 26-year-old of murder, burglary and two counts of rape.
Keogh broke into the 72-year-old victim’s home in Fleckney, near Leicester, in the early hours of September 24 last year.
He had been on a cocaine-fuelled night out with friends and was said to be ‘off his face’.
During the night out, he threatened two pub workers, telling them: ‘I’m from Fleckney. I’ve seen someone get shanked. I’ve got a piece.’
Despite the brutal rape and murder, witnesses said Keogh was ‘bubbly’ in the days after Mrs Hings’ death.
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Keogh refused to give evidence at his trial, having previously claimed in police interviews that he had consensual sex with Mrs Hings, and that she was alive when he left.
In her closing speech to the jury, prosecutor Mary Prior QC said of Keogh: ‘How could you be bubbly and happy in such circumstances?
‘That money – that he took during the course of that burglary – was used on showing off, meals out, drinks for friends – flashing the cash.
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‘We say it’s very, very clear that he snuck in there and took her things. He took the privacy of her body, and then he took her life quite deliberately.’
Keogh will be sentenced on Tuesday.
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