Odd duo they had a perfect

●● Katrina Walsh delivered these flowers to Sadie Hartley’s house as a ‘dummy run’ a week before the murder

CALCULATING Katrina Walsh looked Sadie Hartley directly in the eye and handed her a bunch of flowers.

It was a prelude to her murder – a carefully planned reconnaissance mission designed by Sarah Williams to ‘test the water’.

A week later Sadie was dead, butchered in her hallway.

Walsh – a horse riding instructor who suffers from alopecia – did her best to appear a ‘zombie’ and ‘the caricature of a fool’, jurors were told.

But despite blaming Williams, prosecuting counsel John McDermott QC said that in reality she took an ‘almost gleeful participation in the murder’.

Walsh was one half of an odd duo who believed they had planned the perfect murder.

Intelligent, artistic and eccentric, with limited social skills, Walsh, 56, was very different to Williams, 35, but shared interests and an unhealthily close relationship.

Heavily tattooed on her arms, Walsh was in a biker group and rode a Harley Davidson she called Raven. She owned a horse called Zephyr, used Tarot ●● Sarah Williams cards and had a penchant for making jewellery. Her hair loss meant she was never seen without a hat or bandana.

Walsh first met Williams at stables when her co-accused was aged just 12. Both were heavily involved in horse riding.

Known as Kit, she told friends Williams was supportive during the breakup of her marriage with Kevin Walsh in 2008.

Witnesses said the older woman was ‘in awe’ of her young companion, with CCTV recovered by police consistently showing Williams striding ahead, with her slightly-stooped friend following literally in her wake.

It was even suggested that just hours before police swooped, they had celebrated executing their ●● Katrina Walsh plot by singing along to a DVD of the Abba-themed musical Mamma Mia.

Walsh was described even by her own lawyer, Tony Cross QC, as ‘vile’ and ‘guilty as sin’, but he suggested that for all her undoubted faults, she did not believe Williams would kill and would never have agreed to murder.

Walsh told police she thought they were playing out an elaborate charade, like in the TV show Hunted. On arrest, Walsh told detectives ‘I’ll follow the memories” as she led them across farmland to where she had buried the stun gun and other evidence.

But as with her claims of a poor memory, it was all an act, the jury were told.