Serial sex attacker raped and killed nurse weeks after release from jail
A convicted sex offender raped and murdered a nurse after breaking into her home within months of being released from prison for a similar offence.
Leroy campbell, 56, was handed a whole life tariff – meaning he will never be released – after a judge heard how he plotted to attack Lisa Skidmore for three days, using a stolen set of ladders to gain access to an upstairs window.
the daily Mail can reveal that he has convictions for similar attacks on three different women – including another nurse who awoke as he began choking her in bed after he broke in through her bedroom window with the aid of ladders.
Jailing him on Friday, Judge Mark Wall Qc described campbell’s offending as ‘grotesque’, adding: ‘Miss Skidmore had to suffer the pain and terror of being raped by someone in her own home before she died.’
campbell was given a life sentence after his previous offence in 2000 and served 16 years before his release last July – four months before killing Miss Skidmore.
A court heard that after killing the district nurse, at home poorly on november 24, campbell loitered in the property until he was disturbed by the victim’s mother when she called in to check up on the 37-year-old. campbell punched 80-year- old Margaret Skidmore several times in the face, prosecutor Michael Burrows said. Mrs Skidmore was told by campbell her daughter was tied up upstairs. ‘in fact, she was almost certainly dead,’ said Mr Burrows.
the court heard campbell tried to strangle Mrs Skidmore with a vacuum lead, before torching her daughter’s house. Before leaving, he put drink cans and cigarette ends laced with other people’s dnA in a sink in a bid to put police off the scent.
But the pensioner was rescued in Bilston, West Midlands, by firefighters. A post mortem examination revealed Miss Skidmore died of strangulation, rather than the effects of smoke. Birmingham crown court heard he had told his probation officer six weeks before the latest attack that he was having feelings similar to those he had experienced at the time of a previous rape.
campbell was jailed in 1983 for seven years after being convicted of attempting to choke a nurse with intent to commit rape. in 1992 he was convicted of rape after again entering a woman’s property through a window as she slept. He was given a ten-year sentence.
in May 2000, campbell was back in court, convicted of indecent assault and false imprisonment.
Rachael Brand, defending campbell, said he was a paranoid schizo- phrenic who had shown remorse. campbell, of Moseley, Birmingham, handed himself in three days after the incident. He appeared by video link from jail to admit rape and murder, as well as arson with intent to endanger life and the attempted murder of Mrs Skidmore.
in a statement, Miss Skidmore’s family said: ‘For 19 years Lisa devoted her life to caring for other people, tending to their needs in their last hours, but no one was there for Lisa in her last hours.’
Miss Skidmore – a senior staff nurse – had worked at the Royal Wolverhampton nHS trust for her entire career.