A homeless man has be found guilty of strangling a grandmother to death after she invited him into her home.
In a cruel twist of fate, 61-year-old Anna Maria Thomas had asked Felix Gutierrez-Cortez, 34, to live with her as a carer in return for the shelter so she could avoid the bedroom tax.
Gutierrez-Cortez, who was regularly seen around Clapham Junction station in South London, called an ambulance to the home of Ms Thomas in December 2013, where paramedics discovered her decomposing body.
The court heard how Mr Gutierrez-Cortez had strangled her to death three days earlier.
She was found with a blood soaked pillow under her head, and her eyes were reportedly bulging out of her head.
Gutierrez-Cortez, who is known to be mentally ill, was found guilty of manslaughter by diminished responsibility, and will be sentenced on April 24.
Prosecuting David Howker QC said today: ‘There is no other person in reality that has been suggested as being responsible. Everything points to that being the time of death, him being home and there being no other candidate.
‘It won’t take a great deal for a big man like Mr Cortez to subdue by strangulation Ms Thomas.’
Ms Thomas was described as ‘a caring mother and grandmother and a deeply religious woman with a wide circle of friends who will miss her deeply’.
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