A man who killed his friend in a “frenzied attack” on Christmas Eve was a “loner”, a trial has heard.
Dylan Thomas, 24, is accused of murdering 23-year-old William Bush in the Llandaff area of Cardiff on 24 December.
Thomas, wearing a grey jumper and trousers, attended the hearing at Cardiff Crown Court via video link.
The jury of 10 men and two women were told Thomas had previously pleaded guilty to manslaughter but that the plea was not accepted by the prosecution.
Prosecuting, Gregory Bull KC said the two men had lived together at Tŷ Mathew on Chapel Street “for some years”.
They had known each other since they met as schoolboys and Mr Bush was the defendant’s “only known real friend”, the prosecution said.
In opening the case on Wednesday, the court heard that Thomas went out for meal with his family on the evening of 23 December and his behaviour appeared “normal”.
He stayed at his grandmother’s home in Rhoose, the Vale of Glamorgan, that night but was “unable to settle”.
In the early hours of 24 December, he sent several messages to Mr Bush and said he needed to see him before he went to Brecon to spend Christmas with family.
At 12.36am, Thomas carried out an online search “of the anatomy of the neck”.
Thomas could not drive and enquired about an Uber to take him from his grandmother’s house to the property on Chapel Street, but the court was told his grandmother agreed to take him.
“His reason for going to the house, he told her, was that he wanted to walk the dog,” Mr Bull said.
Thomas’s grandmother remained in the car outside before Thomas returned, “banging on her window, plainly distressed”.
Mr Bull told the jury that passers-by in the vicinity “heard screams of horror coming from the address”.
‘Persistent attack’
The prosecution alleges Thomas “entered through the kitchen, where he armed himself with a large kitchen knife and a black lock knife or flick knife”.
“It is our case that Mr Thomas armed himself with both of those weapons,” Mr Bull added.
Mr Bush was “attacked from behind, probably with the flick knife first, and he was attacked as Mr Bush sat or was stood near to a bean bag”.
The prosecution described it as a “persistent attack” with Mr Bush being “chased down the stairs from his bedroom onto the patio”.
A witness called 999 at 11.24am and the defendant also called the emergency services about seven minutes later to get help “for his injured hands”.
The prosecution said Thomas “washed his hands” before he made the call.
After the attack, the defendant claimed he had acted in “self-defence” and that Mr Bush had “gone mental after smoking cannabis”.
The court heard that Mr Bush’s cause of death was given as “multiple stab wounds to the neck and trunk”.
The jury was also told that Thomas, who denies murder, was mentally unwell and “receiving treatment for schizophrenia”.
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The trial heard that some weeks before Mr Bush’s death, Thomas had been “arrested in London for trying to climb in to Buckingham Palace”.
On 6 November, he had tried “to scale a 14 foot fence” outside the landmark, Cardiff Crown Court heard.
In a police interview played to the jury, Mr Bush’s brother Alex said he “laughed it off thinking this [was] just Dylan being silly” but that Will “understood that it was serious”.
During a call on FaceTime, Mr Bush told his brother that Thomas was “just curious” and “wanted to know what would happen”.
The trial continues.
