A 22-year-old Frenchwoman has been acquitted of murder by reason of insanity, after admitting stabbing an elderly Perth man more than 200 times in his home.

Valentina Strabach, a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic, had pleaded not guilty to murdering Murray Quartermaine, 79, in his South Perth unit on January 29 last year.

Ms Strabach was acquitted on Tuesday after West Australian Supreme Court Commissioner Kevin Sleight found her not guilty on grounds of insanity.

The judge-alone trial heard last week that Ms Strabach had admitted killing Mr Quartermaine after befriending him and forming the mistaken belief he was a pedophile.

A psychiatrist who had treated her at Perth's Graylands Hospital testified she was "floridly psychotic" at the time of the killing, after being overwhelmed by voices in her head telling her to kill the grandfather.

Mr Quartermaine's mutilated body was found by his wife with more than 200 stab wounds from a pair of scissors.

The court heard Ms Strabach, a dual French-Australian national, had left France for Perth last year after voices in her head told her to kill her father.

Ms Strabach was remanded to the Frankland Centre at Graylands Hospital, where a custody order would be issued to keep her for treatment.

Source:

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/8489861/psychotic-woman-acquitted-of-murder