A murderer gave police a map showing where he had buried the dismembered body of a woman who was last seen alive more than seven months earlier, a court heard.
The remains of 55-year-old Julie Buckley were found in 10 pieces in a shallow grave in the Cambridgeshire village of Wimblington after the killer’s disclosure, prosecutor Christine Agnew KC said.
The barrister told Cambridge Crown Court on Monday that Karl Hutchings, 48, pleaded guilty on 15 September last year to Ms Buckley’s murder and provided police with a map showing where her remains were.
The prosecutor said Ms Buckley and Hutchings had been “friends who had spent some time together – they were both addicted to class A drugs”.
Buckley, who had been staying with Hutchings at his home in the village of Christchurch, was last seen alive on CCTV footage at a Budgens supermarket in the nearby town of March on 28 January.
Concerns were raised for her welfare after she failed to attend appointments, and Ms Agnew said it appeared that Ms Buckley was murdered between 29 January and the morning of 30 January.
Ms Agnew said that Ms Buckley’s phone was used on 29 January.
She said that at 8.41am on 30 January Hutchings attended a One Stop shop and used Ms Buckley’s bank card to buy alcohol.
The prosecutor said he later sold Ms Buckley’s car for £500.
Hutchings, who had initially denied the murder before changing his plea, told a teacher at HMP Peterborough that he had “waited it out” before pleading guilty as he “hoped he could be dealt with on a diminished basis”, Ms Agnew said.
She said Hutchings told the teacher he had killed Ms Buckley “because she had been stealing from him and had tried to convince him he was mad”.
She said Hutchings told the teacher he hit Ms Buckley with a hammer over the head which “made her woozy”, adding: “He hit her over the head again which finished her off.”
A post-mortem examination indicated there had been 11 blows to Ms Buckley’s skull.
Ms Agnew said Hutchings was arrested on 13 February last year and “extensive blood staining” was found on a sofa at his home, part of the living room carpet was missing and there were burnt items in the garden.
Allison Summers, mitigating for Hutchings, said he had a “long history of mental health problems and significant drug addiction”.
She said Ms Buckley had been homeless and Hutchings “felt sorry for her” and offered a place to stay.
She said the “precise trigger and exact sequence (of what happened) may never be known with any degree of certainty”.
But she said it was “likely to have started spontaneously when Hutchings lost it and began striking Ms Buckley”.
She said Hutchings had been released from a psychiatric unit less than three months before the murder.
She said he had pleaded guilty after he was advised that a psychiatric report did not support a medical defence of diminished responsibility.
The judge, Mark Bishop, adjourned the case until Thursday when he will sentence Hutchings at Cambridge Crown Court.
