Blenheim man Paul Armon gets life sentence for killing mother with crowbar, knife

Paul Armon was sentenced to life imprisonment when he appeared in the High Court at Blenheim for murdering his mother. Photo / Tracy Neal

WARNING: Graphic content.

Paul Armon stood over his mother and watched her take her last breath, having twice hit her on the head with a crowbar and then stabbing her in the heart with a kitchen carving knife.

Today, the 55-year-old cleaner was sentenced in the High Court at Blenheim to life in prison, with a minimum period of imprisonment (MPI) of 15 years, for what the Crown described as the cold-blooded, brutal murder of his 78-year-old mother, Jennifer Phyllis Sheehan, in her home last year.

“She stood no chance,” Crown prosecutor Mark O’Donoghue said at the hearing.

Armon, of Blenheim, admitted killing Sheehan at a High Court appearance in April.

Following Sheehan’s death, the family said they were “shocked and utterly lost for words”.

While no one gave victim impact statements at the sentencing, Armon’s lawyer, Rob Harrison, said his client had apologised to the family for “the inexplicable events” of Friday, November 22, last year.

He said the “murderous assault” was not premeditated but happened after Armon “snapped”.

“He cannot explain why he snapped”, but Harrison suggested it was an “issue of provocation” brought on by Armon’s mother having “belittled, demeaned and criticised” him for a long time.

“He loved his mother and she had stood beside him throughout difficult times in his life, but also, throughout his life she had been extremely critical of him,” Harrison said.

Sheehan lay dead in her home all weekend before her body was found by the police after Armon turned himself in on Monday morning.

Paul Armon during sentencing in the High Court at Blenheim. Photo / Tracy Neal

The summary of facts showed that on Friday evening, Armon was at his mother’s house where the pair ate the dinner Armon had brought with him.

It had become something of a Friday night ritual - a take-away dinner and watching television.

But an argument began and Armon became angry when his mother mentioned his previous relationships and lifestyle.

Justice Christine Grice said during the sentencing that Armon had claimed his mother started screaming at him and calling him names.

He went to the laundry and got a large crowbar he had been using earlier in the day.

As his mother walked away from him, with her back to him, he used the tool to strike her in the head.

Sheehan fell, hitting the kitchen cupboards as she went down on the floor, her head bleeding from the large cut on the back of her head.

As she lay on her back, face up and conscious, Sheehan looked at her son, said “s**t” and put her hands up to her face to defend herself as the crowbar came down on her head a second time.

The blow broke Sheehan’s right hand as she struggled to defend herself.

Aware she was still alive, Armon then grabbed a carving knife from a container on the kitchen bench.

Standing over her, he watched his mother take her last breath, having stabbed her four times in the chest, with sufficient force that the blade went into her heart and left lung.

When she was no longer breathing, Armon dragged his mother into the bathroom, so no one could see her lying on the kitchen floor.

He then went outside and smoked a cigarette on the back doorstep before trying to clean up.

Armon wiped down blood in the kitchen, placed the knife in the kitchen sink and threw the crowbar under a bed, before leaving the house and arriving back at his place just after 9pm.

At 8.15am the following Monday, Armon turned up at the Blenheim Police Station and said: “I think I need to speak to someone. I have murdered someone.”

He told an officer he had killed his mother in her home and that she was “on the floor in the bathroom”.

Jennifer Sheehan, 78, was found dead in her Blenheim home last November. Her son, Paul Armon later admitted murdering her. The family was left shocked and "utterly lost for words”.

When spoken to further, Armon confessed he had hit his mother on the back of the head twice with the crowbar and then stabbed her in the chest.

He said his mother had “started swearing at him, calling him names and running him down”, which triggered him.

Armon said he “got real angry real quick and just snapped and totally lost the plot”.

A psychiatrist’s report described his actions as having “come out of nowhere” and being out of character, but were the result of a lifelong feeling of inadequacy.

A doctor found there was no evidence of a psychotic illness, and no nexus between mental health and the offending.

Crown prosecutor Mark O’Donoghue said Armon “could have, and should have walked away as he had always done in the past”.

He said the Crown accepted Armon’s statement that he wished every day he had done so, and that he was genuinely remorseful, indicated by his early guilty plea.

Justice Grice said Armon had led a happy childhood with parents he was close to, but they separated when he was an adult.

Armon was born with a facial disfigurement that had led to him being bullied at school, and was something of an outcast, which gave rise to some difficulties later in his life, she said.

As a teen, he turned to alcohol and drugs and his behaviour continued into his 20s when his relationship with his mother grew strained, Justice Grice said.

Armon entered a long-term relationship when he was 29, but lapsed into alcohol and drug abuse following the Christchurch earthquakes, and the relationship ended.

Justice Grice said Armon’s mother “regularly criticised” him, and he usually dealt with it by walking away.

He moved back to Blenheim from Christchurch to care for Sheehan as she aged and needed help, but she was described as “controlling”.

Justice Grice said in determining the MPI that all murders were “brutal, cruel, depraved or callous”, but Armon had attacked his elderly mother by surprise, and when she was incapable of defending herself.

While it showed a high level of callousness, Armon’s remorse and early guilty plea were factors in Justice Grice’s decision to award a two-year credit on the MPI.

Following the sentencing, Detective Sergeant Ashley Clarke, of Marlborough CIB, acknowledged the outcome.

He thanked the investigations team and the wider public who helped with information during the course of the investigation.

“While no outcome can bring Mrs Sheehan back, we are pleased that the matter has now been concluded through the courts,” Clarke said.

Tracy Neal is a Nelson-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She was previously RNZ’s regional reporter in Nelson-Marlborough and has covered general news, including court and local government for the Nelson Mail.