A MAN who killed his mother in one of Calderdale's most macabre murders has died after apparently falling from a flyover in Halifax where he had previously tried to take his life.
Stewart Dawson, 36, fell from Burdock Way – the same structure from which he had tried to take his life in 1994 after slaying Angela, his 52-year-old mother, at their home in Halifax.
Then he had leapt from the flyover above the Hebble Brook but h
it the roof of a building 60 feet below and survived. At the time he was wearing a dressing gown.
But he was found dead near Old Lane last Monday. Minutes earlier he had been seen on the dual carriageway high above North Bridge.
Horrified passers-by alerted the emergency services after seeing Dawson on the walkway of the flyover, also known as the Hebble viaduct, at 4.30pm.
Detectives said they are not treating the death as suspicious. An inquest will be held later.
On November 14, 1994, police uncovered an horrific murder scene after receiving a call from 21-year-old Dawson's sister, Suzanne, 26, who rang to say their mother was missing.
They found the mutilated body of Mrs Dawson, a devout Christian, stuffed under his bed with religious notes scrawled by her killer scattered throughout the house.
He had hit his mother 14 times with a cast-iron frying pan, disembowelled her, cut off parts of her body and gouged out her eyes.
What was thought to be human flesh was found on the stove in the kitchen. Part of an arm and leg were missing and never recovered.
Det Chief Insp Lynne Tolan, of Halifax CID, described the murder as the worst she had encountered in 30 years, adding: "It was the most bizarre case I have ever had to attend.''
Dawson spent several months in intensive care before he could even be questioned by detectives but he later admitted manslaughter at Leeds Crown Court.
During his trial it emerged that the quiet 21-year-old who used to mow the grass at Mixenden Holy Nativity Church, had become obsessed with parts of the Bible, Satanism and Armageddon.
He claimed he could see the future and became fascinated with demons and Satanic rituals.
He saw himself as Jesus and constantly read from the Biblical prophet Ezekiel, chapter 24, verse 4 which follows a passage about "whores" and refers to cooking meat in a pot.
Dawson had not suffered any history of mental illness prior to 1994. He was sentenced to life at Rampton high-security mental hospital to continue his treatment for acute schizophrenia.
Prior to his mother's murder, Dick Bradnum, the then vicar of Mixenden, had written to Dawson's GP after a number of bizarre conversations with Dawson.
But a few days before her death, Angela Dawson, of Mixenden Road, Mixenden, Halifax, rang the GP to say Stewart was going to move out and things were OK.
In fact Dawson was sinking deeper into his delusional world – a world in which his mother, a divorced, mother-of-three, appeared as a dragon.
Chillingly, Dawson scrawled: "November 14, 1994 in the Year of our Lord'' in his Bible in blue marker pen. It was to be the day he killed his own mother.
