I feel like I’m always looking over my shoulder
What student told friends before being killed by ex
A STUDENT was stabbed to death by her ex-boyfriend minutes after telling friends she was ‘ looking over her shoulder all the time’.
Molly McLaren had asked police to stop Joshua Stimpson harassing her, a court heard yesterday.
The 23-year-old, who was studying sport at university, had dumped the warehouseman she had met on a dating site. A fortnight later he killed her with a flurry of knife blows to the head and throat.
Jurors were shown CCTV of Stimpson, 26, in an Asda buying the Sabatier knife he is said to have used to stab her last June.
In the run-up to the killing, he had started posting slurs about Miss McLaren using drugs on Facebook, tagging her relatives so they would read his lies.
The abuse continued even after she complained to police on June 22 and wrote a letter of complaint to bosses at Facebook.
‘I’m scared he will hurt me’
Prosecutors claim Stimpson was watching her social media posts in order to pinpoint her location and stalk her. In messages to a relative, Miss McLaren said he was ‘manipulative and turning nasty’, adding: ‘I am actually scared about what he might do. I’m scared he might hurt me. I don’t know how on edge he is.’
He tracked Miss McLaren to the Dockside outlet village in Chatham, Kent, before pulling open the door of her Citroen and attacking her.
A passer-by, Benjamin Morton, tried to pull Stimpson off his victim but he moved inside the car and continued the attack. He told police: ‘It was like a frenzy, he was doing it again and again’.
Shortly before her death on June 29, Miss McLaren, who was a part-time barmaid, had been working out at a gym.
CCTV stills show Stimpson peering into the work-out studio and she confronted him in the reception area.
In a panic, Miss McLaren texted her mother who told her to drive straight to the family home in Cobham, near Gravesend. She also sent a WhatsApp message to a group of her friends, saying: ‘Feel like I’m ****ing looking over my shoulder all the time.’
Eight minutes later she was dead.
Philip Bennetts QC, prosecuting, told Maidstone Crown Court that Stimpson had been waiting in his own car for her to leave the gym.
After the killing he was arrested at the scene, covered in blood and with injuries to his hands. He put up no resistance and told security guards: ‘You want me’.
Stimpson, from Wouldham, near Rochester, admits killing Miss McLaren but denies her murder.
Mr Bennetts told the jury: ‘The defendant has pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the basis that at the time of the killing he was suffering from diminished responsibility.
‘The prosecution do not accept that he was.
‘Psychiatrists will be called by the defence and prosecution to assist you in determining whether he was or was not suffering from diminished responsibility. A psychiatrist for the prosecution is clearly of the opinion that this defendant was not.’
Miss McLaren and Stimpson started dating in November 2016 after meeting through Tinder but briefly split four months later. They gave their relationship another go but Miss McLaren finally ended it for good on June 17, 12 days before she died.
Mr Bennetts said Stimpson ‘may or may not’ have also been stalking Miss McLaren after their break-up, but he had certainly begun to follow the Kent University student, and cropped up when she was out with friends.
The night before she died Stimpson had turned up at a pub where she was having drinks with friends. He is said to have eyeballed them from outside before leaving.
The trial continues.