A 19 year-old who admitted killing a man by strangling him and stamping on him, then setting him on fire has had his charge reduced from murder to culpable homicide by jury in a Scottish court.
Ryan Esquierdo, 19, strangled to death Stuart Walker, 28 and then set fire to his body on an industrial estate in Cumnock, Ayrshire, last October. He has admitted to the killing, but claims he lashed out in a fit of uncontrollable rage after a consensual intimate moment brought back memories of a childhood trauma.
Esquierdo alerted the police to the killing but claimed he found Walker’s body after he had been killed by others.
Derek Ogg QC, defending, said the killing was “not a gay hate crime” but “far more complex than that.”
He added: “I would like to place on record Ryan Esquierdo’s utter bafflement and horror that he could inflict such violence.”
Neighbours and locals in Cumnock, Ayrshire, were outraged that a reduced charge was accepted by the court.
One 56-year-old man said: “The Walkers are a lovely family and are very well known in the town.
“I think it’s a disgrace that someone can brutally murder a young man like that and burn his body yet he is allowed to get away with murder.
“Where is the justice in that?”
Another neighbour, a 32-year-old mum of two, said: “Our hearts go out to Stuart’s family. We were all shocked when we heard what had happened to him.
“It wasn’t as if this teenager didn’t mean to kill him. He was tortured and then he set fire to his body.
“What do you have to do to get done for murder? That’s what I want to know.”
Tory MSP John Lamont said it was “very difficult” to understand the reduced charge.
He said: “There is a risk that it creates an impression that more or less any murder – however nailed-on – can be watered down in some way or other.
“It is an insult to the victims and their family.”
The victim’s family have elected not to comment until after Esquierdo is sentenced. Walker’s father died of a heart attack three months after the killing.