Stalker, 40-year old John McFarlane, has been jailed for life shooting and killing Mary Griffiths, 38-year old fitness instructor and mother of three daughters, on May 6th with a bolt gun (cattle gun) in front of her young daughters aged 10 and 13 years old. McFarlane will be in jail for at least 20 years.





McFarlane and Griffiths had met through their shared love of martial arts, particularly body combat. They progressed from being students to part-time instructors. Sometime during that time he got obsessed with Griffiths.

McFarlane left his wife in April and became increasingly obsessed with Ms Griffiths. He posted a message on Facebook falsely claiming that they were having an affair. In reply Ms Griffiths wrote: “You are delusional if you think I would touch you with a barge pole. Stop stalking me or I will call the police.” Source: www.timesonline.co.uk

On May 5th both of them argued and Griffiths ended up calling the cops complaining that he was stalking her and expressed fears for her safety.That night McFarlane carefully planned to take revenge on her.

At around 6pm she called her local police station for advice. She was due to be seen by officers than night, but the meeting was rescheduled for the following day. After midnight, McFarlane wrote on his Facebook page: “They say there’s nothing worse than a woman scorned, well watch this space. “If someone rips out your heart and stamps on it then they deserve the same.” The Old Bailey heard that McFarlane carefully planned the murder by diverting armed police to his false report of a burglary at a rifle shed at the farm where he worked as a slaughterman and watched them leave the station before heading to her home in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. At 2.45am on May 6 he smashed his way into the victim’s £250,000 house with an axe. He cut the electricity, ran upstairs and dragged Miss Griffiths from her bed where she was sleeping with her 10-year-old daughter. A second daughter, 13-year-old, sleeping in a neighbouring room was woken and both girls tried to fight off McFarlane as their mother screamed for help.



McFarlane threw Miss Griffiths down the stairs and all four ended up outside. Having beaten away the children he shot the mother twice in the chest and once in the shoulder with the bolt gun, in what one witness described as “an execution”. In a text message sent to a colleague at the farm before the killing, McFarlane wrote: “Yes JB (McFarlane) is off on a revenge mission to teach people a lesson who stamp on your heart. “I will spare the mother, not the beautiful girls. They like me will die. “Hasta la vista baby.” He followed it with another message to a friend saying: “This is what rejection does, it ***** you up. All I needed was a cuddle and to be loved.” Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

Griffith’s 13-year-old daughter shouted: “Don’t do it, stop it,” as McFarlane shot her mother with a bolt gun used to stun livestock.

The killer was found later lying in a back garden having cut his arms in an apparent suicide attempt.

McFarlane is definitely a psycho and should have been locked up earlier. If the police would have acted earlier, they might have discouraged him from going on with the revenge.