A WOMAN accused of a triple murder was found by a paramedic cuddling the body of a dead man, a court heard yesterday.
Edith McAlinden, 37, was screaming when paramedic Stephen Rutherford, 38, arrived at the flat in Dixon Avenue, Crosshill, Glasgow.
He told the High Court in Glasgow that apart from the man she was cuddling, there were two other dead men lying nearby.
After examining both, he asked Mrs McAlinden to leave the settee where she was cuddling the body so that he could check for signs of life.
McAlinden, her son John McAlinden, 17, and his friend, Jamie Gray, 16, are on trial at the High Court in Glasgow where they deny murdering David Gillespie, 42, Ian Mitchell, 67, and Anthony Coyle, 71, on October 15 last year.
The incident is alleged to have happened in the flat where Mr Mitchell and Mr Coyle lived. Mr Gillespie was a resident of the Alexander Thomson Hotel in Argyle Street, Glasgow.
It is alleged that Mr Gillespie and Mr Mitchell were repeatedly struck on the head with a bottle, punched on the head and body, stabbed on the head and body, and stamped on.
It is also alleged that both men had boiling water poured over their heads and bodies.
In addition, Mr Mitchell and Mr Coyle, the charges allege, were also attacked with knives, an axe, metal files, a belt, baseball bat, golf clubs, pieces of wood, and a hammer and an axe.
Earlier, James Sweeney, 61, a gardener from Dixon Avenue, told how Mrs McAlinden arrived at his door with blood on her top and trainers, and told him: "Something has happened, " and asked him to go round to Ian Mitchell's flat.
When they got there Mr Sweeney said Mrs McAlinden unlocked the door, and inside he could see the three bodies.
Mr Sweeney added: "I said 'What the hell happened here?
Did you do this?' but she made no reply. I told her to wait here for a minute while I went to a nearby pub to get a phone. She said 'Jim, what will I do, what will I do?'.When I got back Edith McAlinden was still there. She was sitting beside Ian Mitchell crying all the time."
The trial, before Lady Dorrian, continues.
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