Candlestick killer 'posing on dating apps' after release from prison for murder of schoolboy
Art gallery owner Bennet von Vertes brutally killed Alex Morgan, who had a Scots father and once studied at King Charles' former boarding school in Moray, with a candlestick in a Swiss villa in 2014.
A drug-crazed aristocrat who murdered a former Scots public schoolboy with a candlestick has reportedly been posing on dating apps after his early release from prison.
Art gallery owner Bennet von Vertes brutally killed Alex Morgan – who had a Scots father and studied at King Charles' former boarding school in Moray – in a Swiss villa in 2014.
Von Vertes, 40, sas jailed for 12 years for battering Alex, 23, with a candelabra, stabbing him with glass and forcing a candle down his throat.
Now Alex's mother Katja Faber has revealed how she has been sent images of her son's killer scouting for dates on apps around Europe after a string of women alerted her to his profiles.
Katja, told the Standard, who recently released a podcast on the harrowing case: 'It's quite extraordinary that someone on parole for such serious crimes can wander about the world as if he had done nothing."
Alex was born in London but studied at Gordonstoun near Elgin for several years before meeting his killer at the now Regent's University London.
His mum had moved to Switzerland and when he went to visit her during Christmas 2014 he was invited by Von Vertes to his family's empty villa after a night out.
Alex suffered more than 50 injuries in the brutal and prolonged attack and was dead by 7am on December 30.
Von Vertes went on to tell a Swiss court Alex was the aggressor but he lacked defensive injuries, with just one cut to his finger.
He was found guilty of intentional homicide but the case was sent back to court in 2019 for appeal, where Von Vertes claimed he was so high on drugs he believed Alex was a green alien.
The conviction was briefly quashed and the killer sent to an enclosed rehab facility, but Katja fought for another appeal and he was again found guilty of intentional homicide.
The Supreme Court denied Von Vertes's final attempt at freedom in 2023, meaning he had to accept his guilt, which also includes a conviction for raping a woman in a London hotel.
Last year, nine years on from Alex's death, Von Vertes was released on full parole.
Months later, Katja, who now lives on a farm in Spain and helps other families suffering grief, was sent images of Von Vertes on dating apps from two women and was contacted by a third.
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One image shows Von Vertes with an AirPod in his ear and the other is of him standing in front of a set of mailboxes.
It has previously been reported that one woman unwittingly went on a date with Von Vertes while he was on day release from prison and found him 'verbally abusive' as he boasted about having been sent to jail for killing someone.
The woman reportedly fled the horror date after matching with him on an app where he'd used the name Benjamin Schwarz.
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