Source: Women are Human
UK — Hambledon, England. A teen callously murdered his mother by strangling her to unconsciousness and stabbing her 118 times. He was found dead four days later in a secure mental health hospital. Now the teen’s father says the blame for the untimely deaths of his son and ex is on the shoulders of authorities who repeatedly placed the ‘nonbinary’ teen in sex-segregated mental health units.
17-year-old Rowan Thompson, a private school pupil who changed his name from Ben when he began identifying as ‘genderless’, visited his mother, 50-year-old speech therapist Joanna, for the weekend at her village home. The teen had recently gone to live with his father, Marc, a magician.
Mother and son engaged in “stressful” conversations about his living arrangements. The teen decided his mother was “controlling and over-bearing.”
The following day, 1 July 2019, the mother and son went for a morning jog. When they returned home, the teen “felt strange,” and began strangling his mother. Joanna Thompson fell to the floor, and Rowan Thompson strangled her until she was rendered unconscious.
“10 or 15 minutes later,” the teen returned to find his mother still breathing, and used knives to stab her 64 times in the neck, 38 times in the forehead and 16 times in the arm.
At 12:45 PM, the teen called the emergency number and reported in what Coroner Jason Pegg would later describe as a “calm, unemotional and quite ordinary manner”:
“I’ve just killed my mum. I need someone to arrest me as that’s what you do and an ambulance would be nice. I strangled her and I’ve been stabbing her with various knives and whatnot. My younger brother is at school, he’s due back later tonight. … She’s not breathing… bring a body-bag or whatever you do. I’m 99.9 per cent sure she’s not breathing.“
He “made sure” her breathing stopped, the teen told the operator, and “put the knives in the dishwasher just in case.”
The arresting officer found the teen “extremely calm and composed” and “more concerned about his cat.”
Rowan Thompson was placed in a secure mental health facility. His trial was set for 7 October 2020. Four days before the date, he was found dead.
Police said Rowan Thompson’s death is not suspicious. The inquest into the teen’s death is scheduled to take place next year.
The youth had a history of suicide attempts and depressive bouts, and had spent prior stints in mental health hospitals following the suicide of his mother’s brother.
Marc Thompson insisted Rowan Thompson was “troubled,” but never aggressive, loved his mother and planned to become an architect. He said the system had failed Rowan Thompson by always placing the teen in single-sex units, despite the teen’s ‘genderless’ identity.
He claims two psychiatrists thought the youth “mentally incapacitated.”
Psychiatrist Dr John Sandford told the inquest into Joanna Thompson’s death that Rowan Thompson had minor autism, but he found no indication of “abnormal mental functioning.”
The late Joanna Thompson was described by her sister Sophie Rugge-Price as “shy, gentle and kind,” “always thinking about others” and “devoted to both her sons.”
