Kind Samaritan invited homeless man to stay before he was bludgeoned to death with table leg…scary tattoo snared killer

IT was a cold December when mild-mannered loner, Jamie Gawler, took pity on a homeless man and invited him to stay with him at his flat until he could find a more permanent shelter. This act of kindness was to be repaid in the most horrific way, with a brutal attack that saw Jamie, 54, bludgeoned to death with so many blows that the pathologist was unable to count them. Kind Jamie Gawler made a fatal error by letting homeless Matthew Jonathan stay in house Credit: West Mercia Police Matthew Jonathan was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 32 years on September 12, 2025 Credit: West Mercia Police With no witnesses to the attack, detectives began to piece together Jamie’s final days. Dogged forensic work, phone and financial analysis was to lead them from Hereford to Wales on the trail of their suspect. Sign up for The Sun newsletter Thank you! The discovery of an unusual boot print, a damning video on a mobile and an alarming tattoo with the words “Natural Born Killer” led to his downfall. In the BBC documentary Murder 24/7, a neighbour of Jamie’s tells police of her suspicion over a man she had seen him with. “Jamie spent a lot of time on his own,” she says. “I felt he was a bit of a loner and he didn’t want to be. I used to talk to him through his window as I passed by. “He had a heart of gold. He was a lovely chap and enjoyed a chat.” She had last seen Jamie the previous week with another man at his home. The neighbour continues: “Jamie said that the man was going to be staying with him for a few days because he didn’t have anywhere else to go. Most read in The Sun “The man told me, ‘You don’t have to worry about him [Jamie]. Nobody will hurt him while I’m around.’ “I thought he had ‘the talk’. But I don’t get taken in that easy. Jonathan tortured and directed obscene homophobic abuse at Gawler before his death Credit: West Mercia Police Jonathan also stole and used Gawler’s mobile phone and bank cards Credit: West Mercia Police “I just had a feeling that it was a bit false.” On Saturday January 18 2025, Jamie’s brother called his mobile phone and was surprised when it was answered by a police officer who said it had been found earlier that day at Porth railway station, South Wales. Concerned for the welfare of his brother, he visited his flat in Hereford and then immediately rang the police. When they arrived, they found blood on the hallway floor and splattered up walls and Jamie dead in an armchair with a red towel draped over him. A post-mortem revealed blunt force trauma to the head, neck and chest, with almost every rib broken. Detectives recovered a table leg at the scene that they thought was a likely murder weapon. They were taken aback by the frenzy of the attack. Gareth DCI Gareth Lougher, leading the murder investigation, says: “There are cases you work on where the level of violence from someone is sadistic and dangerous. “Every second someone like that is on the loose, you think they might do it again. “Until we track down the suspect and retain them, I don’t feel we can rest.” No mobile phone or credit cards were found in the flat, which pointed to a possible theft. When South Wales police officers found Jamie’s mobile phone at Porth railway station there were also bank cards in his name and that of Matthew Jonathan, who became prime suspect. CCTV footage at the station at 5.33am, the day before Jamie’s body was discovered, shows the man suspected to be Jonathan looking drunk. He suddenly falls backwards on the floor, hitting his head and lies unconscious. A passer-by calls 999 but the man wakes up and starts attacking the paramedic who has to run off. In his stupor, Jonathan leaves behind the phone and bank cards on the platform floor. Further CCTV shows him at Hereford train station in the company of a man with a red baseball cap, before he gets on a train to Porth. The value of community police is underlined when PC Lee Phillips, who has been patrolling the streets of Hereford for 12 months, immediately recognises the man in the red cap as a local called George. “Working the streets you get to know everybody in your area,” says Lee. “It’s the same faces and the same places. “You know them and they know you. Mostly, I deal with the smaller incidents – antisocial behaviour, shoplifting. “Every now and then, that local knowledge becomes really important with much more serious crime.” George told the investigation team that he had seen Jonathan sleeping outside the station and got talking to him. He had told George, “I’ve done something and need to get out of Hereford.” He also said that he had £1,000 on him. “There was something about him that wasn’t right,” George recalled. “He apparently had a fight with someone. “He just said it was with a bloke who had provoked him and he had hit him and hurt him badly. I don’t think he’s a very nice person.” When the name Matthew Jonathan was run through the police database it showed he had 18 prior convictions, 33 previous offences, possession of Class A drugs, strangulation and the assault of a grandmother. He had been released from prison just six weeks earlier. Eleven empty vodka bottles were found in Jamie’s house. Two clear fingerprints on one of them were an exact match to Jonathan. He was arrested in Porth and while in custody, police found the chilling words ‘Natural Born Killer’ tattooed across his back. One man, who knew both Jamie and Jonathan, says he had got to know them when they all attended Alcoholic Anonymous meetings. “Jamie was one of the most kind-hearted lovely people I’ve ever met,” he says. “He wouldn’t hurt anyone. “He was good to me. He always used to give me cigarettes or a couple of quid. “He used to call me handsome or ‘the looker’ because he was gay. “Jamie told me that Matt was staying with him for a while. “I felt he was latching onto Jamie. Matt had a short temper.” Analysis of Jamie’s credit card spending led to detectives watching CCTV footage in shops where Jonathan was seen using it to buy vodka and lemonade. In police interviews Jonathan gave largely “no comment” responses, but the case was building against him. A critical forensic breakthrough came when analysts matched an incomplete, bloody footprint from the scene to Jonathan’s rare boots via a national database. To try to understand more about Jamie, police visited his heartbroken family to hear about the man they knew. Jamie’s stepmother, Milo, told them: “He was very thoughtful and was always laughing as a child. “I would say he was a timid boy. Very gentle, quite shy but very loving. “Jamie told me that he’d met a chap who was homeless in Hereford and said he was going to ask him if he’d like to come and stay at his flat for Christmas, because it was so cold and he didn’t like the idea of him being out in the cold.” Jamie’s father, Nigel, said: “It didn’t surprise me that Jamie would feel sorry for him but it did surprise me that he would invite him in. “Jamie very rarely had other people in the flat. He was a solitary person, really. “Jamie used to go to church. He was a big fan of The Book of Common Prayer. “He used to say, ‘It’s my only good habit, dad.’ “He would have periods where he would go to church and periods when he wasn’t so well when he didn’t go. “I think perhaps we didn’t really understand about the state of his mental health. “Perhaps someone picked up on that, realised he was vulnerable and took advantage of him.” So far, although the evidence pointing towards Jonathan was damning, it had all been circumstantial, until police discovered a series of videos of him on his phone, assaulting Jamie, hitting and kicking him while shouting obscene homophobic abuse. Jonathan, 39, was charged with murder and eventually pleaded guilty. On the day before the sentencing, Milo and Nigel went down to the river to reflect on good times with Jamie and how life would be without him. “I used to sit by the river with Jamie and watch the swans,” said Milo. “I needed a few minutes to think about him and remember some of the best times.” “Jamie was only 54,” said Nigel. “I feel the family has been robbed of many years of memories. The family loved him.” Jonathan was sentenced to life imprisonment, with a minimum of 32 years. Judge James Burbidge said the attack was “beyond belief”, motivated by hostility to Jamie’s sexuality. Despite this, Nigel has found the strength through his religion to forgive his son’s killer. “Hatred was what Jonathan felt toward Jamie,” he says. “He hated him for what he was. Being a Christian, I’ve had to reconcile my faith against the awful things that Jonathan did. “But I can’t let that hate eat into me. “I have made the personal decision to forgive Jonathan for what he’s done. I think Jamie would have wanted me to.” Murder 24/7 is shown across two part on BBC on Tuesday and Wednesday at 9pm Comment now