Teenage murderer had bragged he wanted to kill girlfriend’s mother
SCHOOLBOY killer Lucas Markham openly bragged to classmates about wanting to murder his girlfriend’s mother, a friend revealed yesterday.
The teenager said he hated Elizabeth Edwards, 49, who had tried to end his relationship with her daughter Kim.
Markham was said to have told schoolmates he wanted the dinner lady dead – but they didn’t believe him.
With help from his teenage lover, he then went on to slaughter her mother Mrs Edwards and younger sister Katie, 13, at their home in Spalding, Lincolnshire. The victims were smothered and stabbed before the killers calmly watched the Twilight vampire
‘He said he hated her’
movies together and had sex. Markham and Kim Edwards were just 14 when they carried out the crime, becoming Britain’s youngest double murderers – and last week appeal judges ruled they could be named for the first time.
Yesterday former schoolmate Adam Free told how aggressive and disruptive Markham harboured a deep-seated resentment for his girlfriend’s mother. ‘ He was always complaining about Elizabeth,’ the 15-year-old said. ‘He hated her. He said that he wanted to kill her before but my friends didn’t believe him.’
Markham was said to have been expelled for attacking other pupils at Sir John Glebe High School in Spalding.
Adam said his friend was on a downward spiral of violence shortly after he was moved to a unit for disruptive children.
‘He used to punch me and my friends in lessons,’ he said.
‘He got into lots of fights when he was in Year 7 and they put him in isolation.’ Markham’s hatred of Mrs Edwards – who believed he was a bad influence on her daughter – intensified after he and Kim ran away and spent a week camping in woods near the school in October 2015.
On his return he was teased ‘relentlessly’ and nicknamed ‘Ray Mears’, after the bushcraft expert and TV presenter.
Adam said: ‘ When he came back from running away he really hated Liz. Before he went away he said he wanted to kill her but when he came back he said it all the time.’
The teenager said his friend excelled at maths and English and believed he would have planned the murders. ‘ He was really organised and liked everything neat,’ he explained.
But he added the driving force would have been Kim Edwards, who was a ‘goody two shoes’ at school but hated her churchgoing mother after being punched by her when she was eight and spending six months in care. She also believed her sister was the favourite child.
Adam said of Markham: ‘ He would do anything that Kim wanted him to do. I think if she asked him to do it he would have just got on with it.’
Markham was also ‘obsessed’ with the 2014 murder of Adam’s 42-year-old father, Warren Free, and may have been emboldened to commit the double murder as no one was convicted of the crime. Markham was never charged over the killing but boasted of having been present.
Markham and Edwards, now 15, were convicted of murder in November last year and sentenced to life with a minimum term of 20 years. Last week the Court of Appeal cut the minimum to 17-and-a-half years.
Markham was let in to Mrs Edwards’ house before carrying out the murders last August. He and Kim Edwards then spent 36 hours in the property, having a bath together before watching movies and eating ice cream.