Builder killed client then went on the school run
Customer’s complaints led to hammer horror
A BUILDER was heard whistling a tune as he headed off to pick up his daughter after battering a client to death with a hammer.
Peter Norgrove, 43, was jailed for life yesterday after leaving Sharon Gordon, 58, in a pool of blood at the bottom of her stairs.
Dad-of-three Norgrove,
43, had spent 15 months erecting a side extension at Sharon’s home. The £29,000 project was only meant to take six weeks but was beset by problems.
Both worshipped at the same Jehovah’s Witnesses church, Wolverhampton crown court heard.
Sharon, a mum of one, kept a diary detailing newly qualified Norgrove’s poor work and timekeeping in Dudley, West Mids.
He snapped last July, minutes after the grandmother criticised him to her friends in her house.
CCTV filmed Norgrove entering Sharon’s rear door wearing red builder’s gloves after her pals left. The
accounts assistant’s doorbell camera recorded her screams as he hit her over the head with a lump hammer.
Norgrove then took it to his car and was heard on the camera whistling as he returned to the house.
He spent half an hour cleaning up before “coolly” driving to collect his daughter from school. He then went to his mother-in-law’s to dump blood-stained items in her wheelie bin and the hammer in her shed.
Later he took his wife and children to their Kingdom Hall and led a service on Zoom, the court heard.
Friends found Sharon’s body the following day.
Norgrove later confessed to the murder. His lawyer Balbir Singh called him a “perfect family man”.
Judge Michael Chambers KC gave him a minimum of 15 years for the “brutal and callous” murder.
Sharon’s daughter Rhian Brown said: “I am tormented at the thought of what my mum endured.”