A woman allegedly cut off her mother's head after killing her before carrying it around in a carrier bag, a court was told.

Odessa Carey is accused of causing the death of her mother, Odessa Carey Snr.

ChronicleLive reports that when police found the 73-year-old's body on a bed in her home in Ashington, Northumberland, her head and neck were absent.

Jurors were told her daughter carried her mother's head around in a bag before hiding it in a cupboard under a sink at a friend's home.

The court also heard she pulled her mother's head from the bag and kissed it in front of a friend.

Jurors were told Carey, 36, is too unwell to be tried for murder so they are only being asked to decide whether she did the act of killing her mother in what is known as a trial of the facts.

(Image: Northumbria Police)

Prosecutor Nicholas Lumley QC told the court: "On April 8 2019, officers from Northumbria Police went to Links View, Ashington. That was the home of Odessa Carey senior, the mother of this defendant.

“On the bed, in her own home, lay Odessa Carey’s body. Or most of it. Her head was missing.

“And her abdomen - her tummy - had been cut open.

“In the bath, in a plastic container, there was blood and brain tissue. And some implements: a large pair of scissors, knives and a mallet.”

The jury heard police went to a home on Morpeth Close, Guide Post, where Carey had been staying with a friend on occasions.

“This defendant, Odessa Tammy Carey, to give her her full name, was hiding in the loft," Mr Lumley said.

“In the pocket of a top she had been wearing were the keys to her mother’s house and the key for her mother’s mobility scooter.

“In a cupboard under the sink, the police found a human head, in a pillowcase, in a towel, inside a carrier bag.”

The day before Carey had visited an allotment where a family friend was often to be found.

Mr Lumley said: “He saw that Odessa Tammy Carey had blood on her hands and arms, which she wiped off, before his eyes.

“She had with her a bag, the contents of which she showed to the allotment holder. It was a human head. She kissed it."

The court heard Mrs Carey was "frail", with arthritis and used sticks and a mobility scooter.

Mr Lumley told jurors: “Examination of her body, her head and her brain, showed that she had been badly beaten.

“She suffered head injuries from which she died.

“And once she had been killed, then her body was further violated in the way described: her head removed from her body; her brain removed from the skull and her abdomen cut open.”

Prosecutors say Mrs Carey was dead by April 6.

Mr Lumley said that on April 7 Carey went to the allotment of a man called John Murray.

He added: “He had been out to the pub and came back to his shed to find Odessa Carey there again.

“She was sitting in his shed, wiping blood from her hands and arms with a baby wipe.

“She had her bag with her. She spoke to John Murray and from the bag, she carefully took a parcel of sorts, the contents wrapped in a pillowcase and a towel, from which she produced a human head.

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"Beyond seeing that it was the head of a white woman, John Murray did not dwell on the contents.

“Odessa Carey spoke and kissed her mother’s forehead, before carefully re-wrapping the head in its shroud.”

After that, Carey is said to have made her way across town, visiting her aunt and uncle before going to the home of John Angus in Guide Post, who had been her father's friend, and let her stay there at times.

The next morning, Mr Murray told someone what he had witnessed and police were contacted and found Mrs Carey's headless body at her home.

Mr Lumley set out a number of conclusions drawn by various experts in the case.

These included:

* Mrs Carey was face down on her bed when she was attacked.

* There were multiple impacts to the head, causing fractures to the face and skull, and damage to the brain itself.

* Fractures to Mrs Carey’s fingers suggest that she had tried to protect herself from those blows.

* Severe head injuries caused death.

* A defect in Mrs Carey’s skull matched precisely the shape of the mallet head.

* Mrs Carey’s head was removed in the bedroom, using knives and scissors.

* The pattern of the blood staining on the bed, walls and ceiling was suggestive of Mrs Carey having been dead at the time her head was removed, a view shared by the pathologist.

* Her body was turned over and her abdomen cut open, a cross-shaped series of cuts to her abdomen had been made.

* The head was taken into the bathroom.

*The mallet had been washed.

* The head was wrapped up in the bathroom before being taken from the house.

* Carey’s shoes, jogging bottoms and fleece jacket were stained with her mother’s blood, consistent with her either having had contact with her mother when she was bleeding or having contact with something which was wet with her mother’s blood.

* The clothing did not bear signs that it was worn at the time of the fatal attack - that clothing is missing.

* A wet wipe from John Murray’s shed was stained with Mrs Carey’s blood.

* The teeth in the skull matched, precisely, the dental records of Mrs Carey.

* Matching DNA profiles were obtained from head, the brain and the body.

Mr Lumley concluded his opening address to jurors by saying: “There is no doubt, therefore, that the head and the body were those of Odessa Carey snr.

“And, whilst there is no eye-witness evidence to this direct effect, the cumulative circumstantial evidence points to Odessa Carey, and to no other person, as having killed her mother, having then removed her head, taken the head with her in a bag, locking the house behind her, then hiding the head at the home of John Angus.”

The trial continues.