A former drug addict and prostitute has been found guilty of murdering Aberdeen man Neil Jolly in a city centre high-rise flat.
Elizabeth Sweeney, 36, was on trial at the High Court in Aberdeen accused of murdering Neil Jolly by assaulting him and repeatedly striking him to the head and body with a kettle.
Sweeney – a crack and heroin addict at the time – was acquitted on Friday of the allegation that she attempted to conceal the murder by cleaning the body of Mr Jolly, 49, in the bathroom at his flat in Marischal Court before covering his body with a duvet.
She was additionally acquitted of attempting to destroy evidence by cleaning the kettle and of assaulting Mr Jolly between June 1 and June 26 2023.
Sweeney, also known as Lizzy, denied the charge of murder and lodged a special defence of self-defence.
She claimed that in the early hours of June 25 2023 to find Mr Jolly raping her in her sleep.
Jury returns guilty verdict
However, today a jury of 10 men and five women found Sweeney unanimously guilty of murdering Mr Jolly with a kettle before concealing his body with the bed cover and taking his house keys.
Following the verdict, Judge Andrew Miller told Sweeney: “Murder is the most serious crime known to the law in Scotland.
“The only sentence it allows is life imprisonment and, in due course, you will be sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Neil Jolly.”
Judge Miller noted that Sweeney – who fought back tears in the dock – had historic convictions for violence and had previously served a prison sentence.
He added that “due to the serious nature of the crime for which she had been convicted” he would delay sentence until March 3 this year.
CCTV showed Sweeney coming and going from Mr Jolly’s flat in the day between when he last seen alive at 9.55pm on June 23 2023 and when she called the police in the early hours of June 26 2023.
The footage showed Sweeney entering the Marischal Court tower block on a number of occasions to change her clothes.
On one occasion, Sweeney was caught on camera entering the building wearing white trainers with what looked like blood soaked into the laces.
This evidence was backed up by witness Matthew Green who told advocate depute Erin Campbell that he saw Sweeney with blood “all over” her trainers on June 23 2023.
“It looked like she had stepped in a puddle of it,” he said, adding: “I’ve seen blood before, and it was wet.”
He continued: “I asked her where the blood had come from, and she said ‘I have just f****** murdered someone’.
“She was saying it seriously, but she had a little laugh.”
In the days it is believed Mr Jolly lay dead in his flat, Sweeney was seen walking the streets of Aberdeen meeting friends, scoring drugs, and drinking in the street.
On one occasion she met a male friend and went drinking for nearly 10 hour, where she could be seen on CCTV kissing, cuddling and occasionally dancing with him.
But in the early hours of June 26, a frantic Elizabeth Sweeney called the police and reported that she thought Mr Jolly was within his flat, badly injured.
Around the same time, a friend of hers, Ian Gray found Sweeney sobbing on King Street and claiming she had “murdered somebody”.
Police subsequently went to Mr Jolly’s flat where they found him dead in his bathroom covered with a duvet.
The living room and hallway of Mr Jolly’s apartment showed signs of a struggle, with blood on the floor and blood-spatter on the walls “almost to the ceiling”.