Ah, Christmas. The most wonderful time of the year, when friends and family get together, share meals, memories, and gifts. Generally speaking, people are gracious when they receive a gift, but there is always that outlier who is less than pleased. As the gift giver, what do you do when that person doesn’t like your gift? Well, in the case of Melissa Young, you kill them.
It was Christmas day, 2013 when Alan Williamson visited his neighbor, Melissa Young. When she gave him his gift, a pair of unisex trainers and a copy of the Sun newspaper’s 2014 calendar, he wasn’t pleased. Young proceeded to block him in her home against his will. He managed to call 999 (the equivalent of 911 in the United States).
Police could hear Alan shouting, “let me out”, but were unable to speak to him directly. Before police arrived on scene, Young made her own call. She informed the police that she had stabbed someone about seven times. “I’m psychiatric can you take me to Royal Edinburgh Hospital please”, she asked.
When they arrived, police found Young covered in blood. “The power it gave me was amazing,” she told them.
What really happened behind closed doors, we may never know. What we do know is that Alan was stabbed 29 times. 12 on the left side of his chest, 12 on the left upper limb, and 5 on his lower left side. Several of the stab wounds went so deep into his chest, that they pictured both his heart and his lungs. The lower stab wounds caused injury to his pancreas, stomach, and spleen.
One of the stab wounds transected the left femoral vein. The deepest wound was 8.5cm (3.35 inches) deep.
As for Melissa Young – she was immediately remanded to Corton Vale, a women’s prison in Stirling, Scotland.
Toxicology reports indicated that blood taken after her arrest showed trace amounts of four different drugs, and she had also exceeded the legal alcohol drink drive limit. However, in court, the judge concluded that given Young had a history of both drug and alcohol abuse, “it seems unlikely that either drink or drugs played a big part in what happened.”
Six consultant psychiatrists agreed that Young suffered from a severe personality disorder. Dr. Lenihan described the disorder as a mixed personality disorder with emotionally unstable (borderline) narcissistic, histrionic, and antisocial traits. Another psychiatrist, Dr. Khan, diagnosed Young with schizophrenia.
Another doctor testified that Young was prone to “violent and dangerous outbursts”, was on 14 different prescription drugs, inhaled solvents daily, and was a known alcoholic. Making matters worse, she had smoked heroin that very morning.
Regarding Young having diminished responsibility for her actions, the judge surmised, “the general impression that one was left with from all the psychiatrists, Dr Khan excepted was of someone who was manipulative and prone to using psychiatric symptoms as a means to obtaining an end.”
When questioned, Young refused to accept that she had stabbed Alan more than seven times, and claimed that either he or the police inflicted the remaining stab wounds as a personal vendetta against her. Worse, she stated that she was indifferent to the fact that she had taken his life. Specifically, she didn’t like him.
Young also claimed that the archangel St Michael had taken over her body as an instrument of God to punish the “unclean demon.”
Further evidence of her dislike of Alan Williamson is the fact that earlier that same year, she abducted and assaulted him, accusing him of stealing her house keys. She held him against his will, waving a knife menacingly. Alan was in such fear for his own safety, that he chose to jump from the first floor balcony down to the garden below, just to escape her.
She told the court that if he had only accepted her gifts, she would not have stabbed him.
After only five days, Melissa Young was given a life sentence, with the possibility of parole after 20 years.
But her troubles didn’t stop there. While incarcerated, she attacked and bit a female prison guard in 2014. She lunged at the guard, grabbing her and pulling her to the ground by her hair. She climbed on top of her and bit her in the stomach, drawing blood. Her defense claimed, “There is a substantial medical health background as she is transgender.” Despite this, she was given an additional 6 months to her sentence.
Melissa Young stood at 6ft 3in, and had been born Richard McCabe. She transitioned in 2002.
About a year after her transition, Young took on a job at a sauna. Her employer, a gay man going by the name of Cher, recalled a time when she had told him about her teen years, when she was bullied for cross-dressing. “”She showed me nude pictures of herself as Richard and he was beautiful. She would dress as a woman at the age of 14 or 15. Gangs of kids used to beat her up in the street.”
He added, She didn’t have much of a life after her sex change. She suffered from paranoia and thought everyone was always talking about her. Her smoking cannabis on a daily basis didn’t help that. Melissa never had any relationships with men. It was all one-night stands – of which there were many – and punters. She was too unbalanced to get close to.”
Cher eventually parted ways with Young after he discovered that she had begun prostituting from her home. “Then I found out she had started turning tricks at her flat. I was angry because she was trying to steal our customers. After everything that had happened, I sacked her.”
She had been bragging about taking groups of drunken men, sometimes as many as 13 at a time, to the back of a nightclub for sex.
Though she has filed appeals, they have been denied, and Melissa Young remains in custody.
Looking for another tragic Christmas Story. Read about what happened when Kristy Bamu went to visit his sister, and was accused of witchcraft.
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