A BRIT was choked to death with a metre-long candlestick by a wealthy art dealer’s ‘drugged up’ son while on a Swiss skiing holiday, a court heard yesterday.
Graduate Alex Morgan, 23, is said to have had his head caved in before being slashed with a broken glass and then choked after being mistaken for a ‘green alien’.
Alleged murderer Bennet von Vertes, 31, who was allegedly high on cocaine and ketamine at his parents’ chalet, is said to have mistaken his victim for a green alien.
Vertes, who denies a charge of reckless homicide, is part of the Vertes art-dealing family in Zurich.
The two men knew each other from studying at Regent’s College in London, reports the Mail online.
While on a skiing holiday in December 2014, Mr Morgan went stay at the wealthy family’s villa on Lake Zurich.
During a snowstorm he partied with his host, but Vertes ‘consumed alcohol, ketamine, cocaine and sleeping pills and went into a psychotic state with paranoid delusions’, a court in Meilen was told at the opening of the murder trial.
Vertes thought the Briton had turned into a green alien who was trying to kill him.
He is then accused of stabbing Mr Morgan with shards of glass from a smashed coffee table and bludgeoning him with a candlestick and a hefty golden sculpture.
He then allegedly rammed the candlestick down his friend’s throat, choking him to death.
The court heard police were called to the villa at 7am the next day by Vertes, who said there was a ‘severely injured man’ in his house.
He was arrested and has been in prison on remand awaiting his trial.
Listening to the harrowing evidence was Mr Morgan’s mother who is a barrister.
Miss Katja Faber, 53, who has two other children, said: “The pain just grinds on and on and on.
“My family and friends, and on occasion even strangers, have been amazing, but most of all, my two beautiful children have held me close and given me the strength to carry on.!”
Mr Morgan’s girlfriend has also been closely following the trial.
The hearing continues.
