Pictured: Penelope John, 50, arriving at court for an earlier hearing after being arrested for her mother’s murder
A former soldier and his mother have been found guilty of murdering his 84-year-old grandmother after claiming she died of cancer.
Army veteran Barry Rogers, 33, and his mother Penelope John, 50, plied the grandmother with whisky and pills before smothering her in bed, a court heard.
The pair were today found guilty of killing retired nurse Betty Guy following a three-week trial – after claiming she’d died from cancer in 2011.
But the court was told there were no record of Mrs Guy suffering from cancer, and Rogers was secretly recorded confessing to the murder.
It took the jury more than eight hours to find the pair guilty of murder.
They were arrested by police five years after Mrs Guy was found dead at her home in Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire.
An ex girlfriend of former army lance corporal Rogers told police he had confessed to her about being responsible for his gran’s death.
Police bugged John’s home after the pair were bailed to the address, where Rogers was heard saying ‘But I did it’ when his mother mentioned her murder arrest.
He was also recorded saying: ‘No, honestly, you have got nothing to worry about, it’s me that’s done the act.
‘There’s nothing to worry about. Nothing to worry about. Keep our story the same.’
Prosecutor Paul Lewis QC said John plied her mother with a cocktail of diazepam, zoplicone and whisky, before Rogers smothered her to death.
Penelope John (pictured) gave her mother a cocktail of crushed tablets and alcohol, a cour theard
He said: ‘They had together agreed to end the life of Mrs Guy at a time to be decided.
‘On the late evening of Sunday November 6, 2011, Penelope John summoned her son to Mrs Guy’s home to put their plan into operation.
‘Penelope John gave her mother a cocktail of crushed tablets and alcohol, and Barry Rogers then deliberately killed her, probably by smothering her with an object such as a cushion or pillow.’
Mr Lewis said Rogers confessed to ex-Rhian Morris, the mother of his child, he’d given his grandmother ‘a load of tablets’.
Barry Rogers, of Fishguard and John of St Dogmaels denied murder but were convicted by a jury of five women and seven men following a trial at Swansea Crown Court
No post mortem was carried out on Mrs Guy, and her daughter chose to have her body cremated days after her death
During their relationship he also told her: ‘You want to be careful or I’ll do to you what I did to her.’
Rogers later married another woman, Lisa Watkins, who said he’d told her how his gran had asked him to help her die.
He told the same story to high school sweetheart Sandra Adams, who reported his words to police after their relationship broke down.
Mr Lewis said: ‘He told Ms Adams that he had drunk a glass of whisky before putting a pillow over his nan’s face.
‘He said that his nan had been fighting him, so he stopped.
‘He said he had then had another glass of whisky and had put a pillow over her face a second time.
‘He said that this time ‘she just went.’
Rogers, of Fishguard, Pembrokeshire, and John, of nearby St Dogmaels, will be sentenced later
The court heard John rang 999 to say her mother had been suffering with bowel and stomach cancer and had died in bed.
But medical records showed Mrs Guy was never diagnosed with cancer, and a doctor John claimed had told her Mrs Guy was terminally ill said the conversation never took place.
No post mortem was carried out on Mrs Guy, and her daughter chose to have her body cremated days after her death.
John said her relationship with her mother had been ‘amazing’ and had her ashes scattered in her garden which she visited every day.
She said she’d inherited only a washing machine and a tumble dryer after her mum’s death, and her son’s recorded admissions had been a ‘joke’.
Asked about a mercy-killing pact, she said: ‘I would never agree to that. My mother was my life.’
But Mr Lewis told the jury the pair had ‘repeatedly changed their stories’, saying: ‘Our case is that they are both guilty of murder.’
Rogers, of Fishguard, Pembrokeshire, and John, of nearby St Dogmaels, will be sentenced later.
After taking the verdict, Mr Justice Lewis told them he would sentence them to life imprisonment on Thursday.
He said: ‘You have been found guilty of the murder of Betty Guy. I order that both of you be remanded in custody.
‘I direct that you be brought back to court on Thursday February 8 whereupon I will sentence you to the sentence required by the law which is life imprisonment and the appropriate minimum term.’
After the verdict, Mrs Guy’s daughter Lorraine Matthews said her family had been ‘shocked and horrified’ to learn that her mother may have been murdered.
In a statement released through Dyfed-Powys Police, she said: ‘Seven years after my mother’s death, my brothers, my sons, myself and other members of the family, were shocked and horrified to learn from the police that my mother, Mrs Betty Guy, may not have died from natural causes and that my sister and her son were to be charged with her murder.
‘Over the past three years the police have worked tirelessly to collect sufficient evidence to bring this case to court.
‘Now that the case has drawn to a close we are satisfied that justice has prevailed and now we can close this very sad chapter in our lives.
‘All our thanks and gratitude go to Dyfed-Powys Police and the associated legal services in pursuing this case and bringing it to a successful conclusion.’
The Crown Prosecution Service did not find a motive for the murder of Betty Guy.
Jurors in the trial instead heard about the detailed backgrounds of Betty’s killers grandson Barry Rogers and mother Penelope John.
Rogers was born in Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, and lived there with his parents and younger brother and sister.
Rogers, now 33, attended school in the county town where he particularly enjoyed maths classes but found it hard to make friends.
He said this was because after school he always had chores to do or training – at the behest of his father.
‘Running the roads, kickboxing,’ he told the jury at his Swansea Crown Court trial.
‘He wanted to try to make me the best in everything I did.’
The father-of-one said he had a ‘very violent’ relationship with his father, Kevin John.
Rogers left home aged 17 in 2002 to join the Royal Corps of Signals as a technician and at around the same time he changed his name from Barry Kevin John to Barry Rogers, taking his mother’s maiden name as his surname.
Three years after joining he was deployed to Iraq where he worked at a large base in Basra.
He told girlfriends and his mother he shot someone in Iraq but in court he claimed he had been in a vehicle in Basra, one of four providing ‘top cover’ with guns from the vehicle.
Rogers said they were fired at and all four returned fire, killing a 13 or 14-year-old boy.
No evidence about the incident was called and Rogers said he could not remember the name of his commanding officer, the three other gunmen, or of who had carried out the subsequent investigation.
Ex-girlfriends described him as a ‘compulsive liar’ – a trait which he admitted while giving evidence during the trial.
One of them, Sandra Adams, said: ‘When it came to his Army career, I didn’t really believe half the things he said that happened.’
Rhianne Morris, who was in a relationship with Rogers when his grandmother died in 2011, said he became angrier after her death.
The court also heard Rogers had made several suicide attempts and had been an inpatient at a mental health facility for a period of time during his relationship with Ms Adams.
Rogers told the jury he suffered from PTSD, borderline personality disorder, ‘intrusive thoughts’ and ‘abandonment issues’ but no medical professional was called to give evidence on his behalf about any formal diagnoses.
On the day of Mrs Guy’s death, Rogers was living in Frome, Somerset, with Ms Morris.
He received a phone call from his mother telling him Mrs Guy wanted to see him.
Shortly afterwards he left on the 163-mile journey to his grandmother’s home in Johnston in Pembrokeshire.
John gave birth to Rogers when she was aged 17 – a year after she met his father Kevin John.
She married Kevin John shortly after Rogers was born but told the trial the marriage was not a happy one.
John said she suffered abuse during the relationship that left her with PTSD and an eating disorder.
She said she was placed in a women’s refuge in Cardigan in Ceredigion and started divorce proceedings.
John said she worked as a manager of a sports shop and later started her own business.
She took her mother to medical appointments and spent a lot of time with her, seeing her two to three times in the week and every weekend.
John added Mrs Guy lived with her for about five months.
On the day Mrs Guy died John received a call from her mother’s friend saying the 84-year-old was asking for her.
She told the jury she drove straight to her mother’s house and they chatted and giggled before going to bed.