A Forfar woman who described her partner as a “psycho” died just a day later in a savage stabbing attack at his hands.
Catherine Sandeman was knifed almost 50 times by Lee Hopsdal, who later told psychiatrists he feared his 40-year-old drug addict girlfriend had been poisoning him on the instructions of the Taliban.
At the High Court in Edinburgh unemployed Hopsdal, 33, admitted a charge of culpable homicide on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
He was originally charged with murder following the discovery of Ms Sandeman’s body on November 1 last year in the flat they had shared together at Forfar’s Glenmoy Terrace.
Hopsdal had alarmed staff at a Dundee shop where he turned up in the hours after the fatal attack.
When staff at a Forfar pharmacy also became concerned that Ms Sandeman had not turned up for her methadone prescription, police gained entry to the flat and were met by the bloody scene.
Forensic reports revealed that Sandeman suffered multiple injuries to her scalp, face, neck, chest, abdomen arms and hands.
Her jugular vein was twice cut in the brutal attack, before the killer placed a knife in her hand in what experts said was a “staging” of the death scene.
Bruising and wounds found on her hands and forearms were believed to be defensive injuries suffered as she tried to block blows.
Psychiatrists found Hopsdal was suffering from a psychotic mental illness but had said he was fit to face a trial.
Hopsdal will be sentenced in June, having been made the subject of an interim compulsion order detaining him to the state hospital at Carstairs.For more from the High Court, see Tuesday’s Courier or try our digital edition.