Mum jailed after encouraging son to kill his older brother

A woman who encouraged her son to kill his older brother has been jailed for 17 years. Alison Murphy, 52, and Gary Murphy, 22, wereboth convicted of attempted murder afterhatching a plan to kill Anthony Murphy, 26.


Alison had initially suggested making her elder son ‘fall in the harbour or off a cliff’,
but instead Gary stabbed him while he
slept on a sofa at their home in Whitehaven, Cumbria.
A series of text messages between the
mother and younger son showed how the
plan was formulated.
In one message read to the jury at Carlisle
Crown Court, she wrote: ‘I definitely think he should be killed but not sure stabbing is the right method. We should make him fall in the harbour or off a cliff.’
Her son later replied: ‘I’m fine with whatever as long as he dies.’

Anthony survived the ‘brutal attack’ thanks to medics and some ‘luck’, the police said.
The court heard Gary had grown resentful of his brother after he returned to the family home.
He had warned his mother: ‘If you take
Tony back, I will come down in the middle of the night and stab him to death on the sofa.’
The younger brother pleaded guilty to attempted murder, while his mother denied
the same charge but was convicted by the
jury.
Gary was sentenced to an indefinite hospital order.

Following the sentencing, Detective Chief
Inspector Roy Ledingham, of Cumbria
Constabulary, said: ‘Gary Murphy intended to kill his brother that day and it is only through luck and the excellent work of medical staff that he does not find himself being sentenced for murder today.
‘The evidence put before the court clearly
showed the attack on his brother was not
only premeditated but carried out following
the encouragement of the mother.
‘It was a brutal attack and I welcome the
sentences handed down today.’