Killer who stabbed his girlfriend to death ‘insane’

His parents, Gordon and Linda, walked into his room to find Miss Kelly had been strangled and stabbed in the head with a knife.

The art student was lying face down on the bed fully clothed. Jarvie was sitting on the floor naked with his hands round her neck. Jarvie’s mother called paramedics, but nothing could be done to save Miss Kelly.

Jarvie, 22, went on trial at the High Court in Aberdeen yesterday, charged with murdering Miss Kelly.

However, the judge instructed the jury to find Jarvie, who has been detained at Carstairs, not guilty of the charge on account of his insanity.

A joint minute read out to the jury stated that it was agreed that Jarvie, who has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, had killed Miss Kelly.

But psychiatrists had concluded that he had suffered a “total alienation of reason” at the time of the offence.

The court heard Jarvie’s friends and family had become concerned about his aggressive and out-of-character behaviour in the weeks leading up to his girlfriend’s death.

After the hearing, Miss Kelly’s parents, Graeme, 49, and Karen, 47, of St Andrews, said they were struggling to understand why their daughter was not informed of his condition.

Mr Kelly, a solicitor from Edinburgh, said: “Jane was the greatest and most generous of girls and her loss causes us overwhelming pain.