You’re the most evil, horrific monster on earth... rot in Hell
Mother’s furious outburst as daughter’s killer is jailed Thug cut victim’s throat in shop after his ex left him for her
A TATTOOED bodybuilder who slit the throat of his ex-girlfriend’s new lover was branded ‘the most evil horrific monster walking this earth’ yesterday.
The grieving mother of the victim faced Andrew Burke in court and told him she hoped he would rot in Hell as he was jailed for 26 years for the horrific murder of her daughter.
Burke, 31, butchered travel agent Cassie Hayes in front of horrified staff and shoppers because he was jealous of her relationship with his ex-girlfriend, Laura Williams.
He had been released on bail only the day before, after being convicted of harassing Miss Williams, 29.
Yesterday, a judge said the ‘cold-blooded execution’ was a ‘cowardly act of revenge’. The court heard the horror unfolded on a busy Saturday afternoon in January this year when Burke walked into a Tui travel agent’s branch in Southport where Miss Hayes, 28, worked as an assistant manager.
As families – including children aged nine and 12 – planned their summer holidays in the store, Burke approached Miss Hayes, who was on the phone.
He told a cashier, ‘I just want to apologise for what I am about to do’, then stood behind Miss Hayes, lowered his hood and in an act of ‘ unspeakable savagery’, slit her throat with a 12cm kitchen knife.
Prosecutor Gordon Cole QC told Liverpool Crown Court: ‘He lifted her head, exposing her neck with his left arm and then ran his right hand across her throat. It was immediately apparent that there was blood flowing and that Cassie Hayes had had her throat cut.’
Burke, whose hands are tattooed with the words ‘what goes around comes back around’, then apologised, saying nobody deserved to see what had happened. But he was also heard saying Miss Hayes ‘had it coming for what she had done to his family’, Mr Cole said.
Chillingly, a final Instagram post with the caption ‘#toolate’, published on the day of the killing, may have been written in the shop while he waited for police to arrive.
He seemed ‘calm’ and showed no emotion, and was lying on the floor when officers burst in, the court heard. He told one: ‘I’m no threat to you, officer. I’ve got nothing else on me. The knife’s on the table.
‘Can you tell the family that was in here I’m sorry, I thought I’d waited till there were no kids in there... It was either kill me or kill her, so I killed her. The only reason I wasn’t still cutting her when you turned up was cos you’d shoot me and I didn’t want to put you through that.’
When he was then arrested on suspicion of murder and cautioned, he asked: ‘ Has she died?’ Yesterday in court, it emerged that Burke had previously posted a series of disturbing online threats to Miss Hayes and Miss Williams, as well as to his sister.
However, because he had led an ‘unremarkable and trouble-free life’ until the age of 29, the threats weren’t taken seriously.
Three years ago, Burke, the former assistant manager of a sandwich shop, had posted gushing pictures on social media of his daughter with Miss Williams.
After she left him for Miss Hayes, he sank into a spiral of self-pity.
Last April he said on social media that the last year had been ‘the hardest time I will ever have in my life’.
He wrote about his ‘so-called straight fiancee having an affair with a woman’, adding: ‘Thank f*** for karma’.
In court, Mr Cole said: ‘He continually blamed Cassie for ruining his relationship. He made attempts apparently to take his own life but also spoke of how he would slit Cassie Hayes’s throat and kill her.’
The court heard that Burke’s ‘entire life revolved around his obsession with Laura Williams’. Both his mother and sister had tried to warn others that he was dangerous.
His sister Sarah branded the situation ‘toxic’ and had urged Miss Hayes to take out a restraining order against him.
Police were aware of Burke’s campaign against Miss Williams and Miss Hayes and last May he was issued with a police information notice warning him over any future contact.
He had already been charged with making malicious communications in January last year after his mother made a statement to police.
She reported him after he threatened to kill himself or Miss Hayes because he held her responsible for the end of his relationship. Burke pleaded guilty to this charge and was fined and ordered to do unpaid work.
Later on, he went to Miss Williams’s house and cut up her clothes. He was convicted of harassment in January this year at Sefton Magistrates’ Court. As he had abided by bail conditions
‘Unspeakable savagery’
during the case, prosecutors did not oppose the court’s decision to rebail him ahead of his sentence.
On the same day he called his sister and said: ‘I’ll turn left and go home, or turn right, go to Wilkinson’s, buy the biggest knife I can find, go to Southport and slit Cassie’s throat.’
The court heard she dismissed those comments and told him to go home and grow up.
But the next day, Burke fulfilled his threat in the most horrific fashion. Burke, from St Helens, Merseyside, admitted murder and having an offensive weapon in a public place.
Members of Miss Hayes’s devastated family were in the packed courtroom yesterday to hear the killer admit his crime.
Her widowed mother Tracy had to leave the room as details of her daughter’s death were read out.
But determined to confront Burke with the lifelong pain he had inflicted, she bravely returned to read out an emotional victim impact statement from the witness box.
The court also heard statements from staff and customers in the travel agent’s, describing how they had been deeply traumatised. A statement on behalf of Laura Williams was handed to the judge but not read out.
Jailing him for a minimum of 26 years, Judge David Aubrey said: ‘You perpetrated a cold-blooded execution in public for the purpose of revenge and in my judgment the killing was an act of unspeakable savagery. This was a cowardly act of revenge designed to kill and did kill a totally innocent person in broad daylight in front of, and witnessed by, so many.’
He said Miss Hayes’s family was left with the ‘agonising loss and the living nightmare of your evil crime’. He ordered that the horrific high-quality CCTV footage of the killing should never be made public.
In a statement at the time of Miss Hayes’s death, Laura Williams told of their hopes of marriage.
She said: ‘Cassie is my partner and words will not explain my sorrow and loss. She is the most amazing, gorgeous, selfless and strong person I know. She is my future wife and my forever.’