Gay Conman murdered lover over £5,000 debt’

Passion of the ass…

Jailed: Glenn Rycroft, above, was convicted of killing Gareth MacDonald with a fire extinguisher

A devious conman who modelled himself on Matt Damon’s high-living killer in The Talented Mr Ripley was today jailed for life after battering his gay lover to death in a hotel room.

Glenn Rycroft, a former British Airways steward who once tricked friends out of more than £200,000 by falsely claiming he needed life-saving cancer treatment, met Gareth MacDonald through an Internet chatroom.

The 30-year-old care worker left his wife and children for the compulsive liar, but after discovering Rycroft was secretly stealing money from his bank account he angrily branded him a ‘f***ing conman’.

Realising he had been exposed, Rycroft – said by friends to have compared himself to Tom Ripley, the gay fantasist who goes on a killing spree in 1950s Italy – searched websites on methods of murder before battering Mr MacDonald to death with a fire extinguisher.

Full details about the 33-year-old’s cheating ways were revealed today after a judge labelled him ‘dishonest, deceitful and utterly cold-hearted’ as he ordered him to serve at least 25 years of a life sentence.

Rycroft was working for BA in 2003 when he callously duped friends and relatives out of their life savings by lying that he was dying of a brain tumour, using the money to enjoy a life of luxury.

The smooth-talking conman shaved his head to fit his account that he was undergoing chemotherapy treatment and even used fake blood bought from a joke shop to simulate lifelike coughing fits which he blamed on the illness.

Friends in Salford, Greater Manchester organised benefit evenings, while a pensioner who had known him since he was a toddler handed over £20,000.

But in reality he was perfectly healthy and used the money to rent a luxury house and go on 11 exotic foreign holidays in just over a year.

Murder hotel: Rycroft bashed his lover over the head at this Travelodge

Arrogant Rycroft even took sympathetic friends on stays at five star hotels in North America and Australia and a luxury golfing trip to the Algarve, telling them he had travelled there for treatment.

Eventually his lies were exposed after one became suspicious and discovered the specialist he claimed to be seeing didn’t exist, and in December 2003 he admitted fraud and was jailed for four years.

But his disgusted friends had no idea how far he would take his interest in the conman-turned-killer played by Matt Damon in the 1999 adaptation of the Patricia Highsmith novel.

‘Glenn watched the film and went on and on about how much he loved it and thought there was something of Mr Ripley in him,’ said one. ‘None of us realised how capable he was of doing of what he did.’

On his release in 2005, Rycroft went on a gay chatroom called Fitlads and met Mr MacDonald, who was happily married to his childhood sweetheart who was expecting their third child.

Impressed by his wealthy lifestyle – Rycroft claimed to have received a £125,000 advance from a book publisher for his life story – MacDonald broke the news to his wife that he was gay, and left the marital home in North Wales.

But despite the lavish gifts and expensive meals, Rycroft was back to his old ways – the house was rented, and the car was leased.

Victim: Gareth MacDonald

They set up a travel agency together, but it soon became clear that Rycroft did not have the money to make the business a success.

Then Mr MacDonald discovered Rycroft was stealing money from his account and sent a furious text message: ‘I never want to hear from you again, you are the f***ing conman people think you are, get out of my life.’

Rycroft set about a violent revenge, with police later discovering he had searched the Internet using phrases such as ‘how to kill’ and ‘can blows to the head kill’.

Two weeks after sending the text, Mr MacDonald agreed to travel to London to help Rycroft repay debts to relatives.

But while they were staying at a Travelodge at Heston services on the M4 near Heathrow airport on September 15, 2007 he was attacked and killed using a 17lb fire extinguisher.

Rycroft claimed he had left Mr MacDonald alone with a rent boy who must be the killer, but blood spatters were found on his shoes and his fingerprints on the murder weapon.

After he was convicted of murder at the Old Bailey, Mr MacDonald’s mother Susan said in a statement read to the court: ‘To learn Gareth was taken in such a horrendous way by someone we trusted and made welcome in to our house is still unthinkable.

‘Gareth was not only my son but also my friend and I miss him so much. It is such a waste.’

Today Judge Timothy Pontius jailed him for life and ordered he serve a minimum of 25 years.

He told Rycroft he had inhabited a ‘fantasy world of your own warped imaginings’, adding: ‘You are not only a thoroughly dishonest and deceitful man but also a wholly unscrupulous and utterly coldhearted one.’