A Fife heroin addict who battered her elderly neighbour to death in a “breathtakingly wicked” attack has been sentenced to a term of 21 years for murder.
Sandra Weir repeatedly struck defenceless pensioner Mary Logie with a rolling pin in her own home in Leven last January.
The 82-year-old, also known as Rae, suffered multiple skull fractures and was found with a total of 31 injuries on her head and neck.
The killing happened after Weir had been stealing significant sums of cash from the pensioner over time to fund her drug habit.
Weir, 41, was convicted of murder by a jury at the High Court in Edinburgh last month and returned to court for sentencing today.
Judge Michael O’Grady QC said nothing could diminish the “callous, cruel and utterly heartless nature of this crime”.
Defence QC Michael Macara said Weir had been transferred from Saughton Prison to Cornton Vale because she had been having suicidal thoughts.
She showed no emotion when sentenced.
A drug addict in debt
Mrs Logie was pronounced dead at her Green Gates home on January 5 last year.
Weir had denied the charges and lodged a special defence of alibi, claiming she was elsewhere at the time.
It emerged, however, she had been a drug addict since her 20s and had racked up debts.
Prosecutors believe Weir initially assaulted Mrs Logie in the morning of January 5.
They believe the evidence suggests she spent much of the day lying in her flat, injured but alive, before Weir returned in the evening to wield the fatal blows.
The judge previously described the manner of Mrs Logie’s death as “breathtakingly wicked”.
He told the court he had “no doubt” Weir left her victim for dead before she “finished her off” as she lay defenceless.
“On the evidence before me, Rae Logie was a decent, kind, tolerant and harmless elderly woman,” he said.
Detective Chief Inspector Keith Hardie, from Police Scotland’s major investigation team, said: “The level of violence inflicted upon Mary, coupled with the prolonged period of bullying and intimidation, demonstrated Weir’s complete disregard for the wellbeing of her victim.”
