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An unemployed British glazier is facing 30 years behind bars for the "brutal" and "calculated" murder of former New Zealand academic Dr Barbara Johnston.
Dr Johnston, 55, had worked at the University of Auckland as a researcher into child respiratory problems, cot death and neo-natal studies for 23
years.
She had only recently returned to England to work at Oxford University, to be closer to her parents, before she was killed.
It took a jury of eight men and four women 15 hours and six minutes to convict Michael Humphries of killing Dr Johnston - then living in north Oxford - for her bank details.
The 43-year-old from Faringdon was handed the mandatory life sentence but told he would spend 30 years behind bars after a trial at Oxford Crown Court heard how he had stabbed the academic 49 times, beat and strangled her.
Judge Anthony King told Humphries: "This was a brutal, callous and calculating murder and by it not only have you destroyed the life of a much loved daughter and sister but that of a valued research scientist whose life work was far from over."
Dr Johnston - a world leader in research into newborn babies - was found lying in her blood stained flat with a jumper around her neck and another around her wrist in January.
The jury heard Humphries was "clean out of cash" and was being chased for money to pay for a hire car.
It was the prosecution's case he got into Dr Johnston's flat - where just weeks earlier he had installed windows - and tortured her for her bank details.
He took the card to withdraw £200 ($567) from Miss Johnston's bank account from a garage ATM after the killing.
His hired Peugeot 206 van was caught on CCTV at the garage but there was no image of him.
Judge King told Humphries: "You made sure she was dead and immediately used the bank card you had stolen and took care to cover your tracks so you would not be detected."
There were no witnesses or forensic evidence in the case. One of Humphries' fingerprints was found on a window at the flat but his defence team had suggested that was from when he installed it.
Judge King said: "You are in my judgement a very dangerous man and likely to be a continuing danger for a very long time."
He added: "I am satisfied your intention was to kill Barbara Johnston, that it was murder for gain in the course of entering another person's home by deceit and targeting the occupant of that home.
"The nature of the violence you perpetuated was not only callous but sadistic.
"You will be required to serve a period of 30 years. There is no mitigation either personal to you or in the circumstances of the offence you have committed."
Before Humphries was sentenced, Richard Latham, prosecuting, said the killer had returned from America, where he lived since 2000, in a hurry in December 2005.
He said Humphries had been in breach of bail following an incident involving the US authorities.
Family pays tribute
Paying tribute to Dr Johnston, her family said: "Barbara's life gave love and joy to her family and friends and her research work brought knowledge and insight to those working with babies in the neo-natal period of their lives.
"Her death and the manner of it brought devastation to those who loved her.
"Her loving, dedicated and worthwhile life should not have ended in a frenzy of brutality.
"Our lives without Barbara will never be the same but we have wonderful memories of her lively, happy personality and we take pride in her research work that made her a world leader in her field.
"Her work forms the bases of further study by her colleagues and this is her legacy to the scientific world. Her legacy to her family is love, she will live in our hearts forever."
Turning their thoughts to killer Michael Humphries, they said: "We believe that all human life is precious and it gives us no pleasure to know that Michael Humphries has brought ruin to his own life and no doubt distress to his family.
"However, we also believe that wrong doing should be punished and we are quite sure that someone who can inflict such savagery on an innocent and defenceless person should never be free to repeat that violence to someone else.
- OXFORD MAIL
