A 19 year-old who admitted killing a man by strangling him and stamping on him, then setting him on fire has been jailed for 12 years.
Previously he had his charge reduced from murder to culpable homicide by jury in a Scottish court.
After they had consensual sex, Ryan Esquierdo, 19, beat, kicked and stamped on Stuart Walker, 28, then strangled him to death and 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. This was enough to persuade the judge to reduce the charge from murder to culpable homicide. But some regard this as subterfuge for a return to the Draconian days of the ‘panic defence’ plea.
Walker’s father died of a heart attack three months after the killing.
Esquierdos’ savage killing actually only commended a sentence of ten and a quarter years. The remainder of the sentence was passed because he attempted to defeat the course of justice by lying about it.