A drug addict has been found not guilty of murdering a disabled mum in her North Ormesby home.
David McCabe was cleared of murdering Teresa Ryan on her 50th birthday. He was also found not guilty of manslaughter.
McCabe, of Barrington Crescent, Thorntree, Middlesbrough, admitted two counts of burgling the home of Ms Ryan, a vulnerable woman who had Huntington’s disease.
The 32-year-old raided her home on Warton Street the day before and the day of her death, but denied murder.
Ms Ryan died hours after she celebrated her 50th birthday with her sons in a Middlesbrough restaurant.
She died from smoke inhalation in a fire at her home on the night of July 9 last year.
The prosecution said McCabe entered the house and robbed her handbag, snapping its strap, after a struggle in which she was rendered unconscious.
It was alleged he set fire to her bed in the dining room to destroy evidence and left her helpless, knowing she would die in the fire.
McCabe claimed the fire must have started accidentally after he left the home, jurors were told.
A heroin addict for 15 years, he admitted he sneaked into her home to steal when he had no drugs or money, and took her handbag from her kitchen door.
McCabe said he heard a toilet flush, panicked and fled, and there was no confrontation with Ms Ryan.
He denied setting any fire or causing Ms Ryan to fall.
He took from the bag three packets of cigarettes, two of which he sold, £110 cash and a phone which he used to buy drugs.
McCabe said he was shocked to hear about the fire the following morning.
He admitted burgling her home the day before the fire, stealing her television which he sold for £25 before overdosing on diazepam tablets.
Giving evidence, he agreed that he saw Ms Ryan as a source of money for his drugs but denied “constantly preying” on her as a “soft touch”.
He denied witness reports that he talked of setting a fire or Ms Ryan falling or hurting herself, or that he had hung around her home and once barged in.
But McCabe said he had known her for five or six weeks, helped her with shopping and fixed her door after another burglary.
In one agreed statement, a witness said she had seen McCabe obviously harassing Ms Ryan for money in the street.
Fire investigators disagreed over the cause of the fire, which started near the foot of Ms Ryan’s bed, away from where she was found on the sofa.
It started by a “human act”, not an electrical cause, it was said.
One investigator believed it was most likely “deliberate ignition”, another said it was not possible to say whether it was started deliberately or accidentally.
The court heard how Ms Ryan fell asleep in bed while smoking, started a fire at a previous home and was taken to hospital with smoke inhalation in 2003. A friend said she regularly dropped cigarettes and had burn marks on her bed, quilt, clothes and chest.
Following her death Ms Ryan’s devastated family told how she was “extremely proud” of her two sons, Steven and David, and how, when she was younger, she enjoyed clubbing, music and dancing and loved to socialise.
In a statement, the family said that, despite illness, Teresa had been “determined to keep her independence and live life to the full.”
It added: “We are all deeply traumatised by what has happened. On the night she died, we had been out for a meal as a family to celebrate her 50th birthday.
“What was a happy celebration of a key milestone in her life has now turned out to be catastrophic and we are left wondering how and why this has happened.”
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