Snared... by his socks
Murderer who bludgeoned his wife to death with a crowbar copied TV crime shows, taking care to destroy every last scrap of evidence. But he overlooked one crucial thing
‘Who has done this to my wife?’
A BANK executive who murdered his cancer-stricken wife with a crowbar before trying to cover his tracks was caught out because he forgot to change his blood-stained socks, it emerged yesterday.
David Pomphret, 51, hit Ann Marie, 49, over the head more than 30 times with the weapon at the remote stables they owned.
He concocted an elaborate cover-up and only admitted killing his wife six months later when mounting evidence – including a blood-stained sock – placed him at the scene of the attack.
But the computer geek continued to deny Mrs Pomphret’s murder, saying he snapped and lost his self-control when she called him a ‘useless’ husband following years of violence and abuse.
His own mother-in-law even told police Pomphret was a ‘angel’ for putting up with her daughter, whom she described as a Jekyll and Hyde character.
Yesterday a jury, sitting at Liverpool Crown Court, took almost 11 hours to dismiss Pomphret’s unusual defence and find him guilty of murder. He had denied the charge, but admitted the manslaughter of his wife of 21 years.
Judge David Aubrey warned Pomphret – an IT specialist with Barclays who has no previous convictions – that he faces life in jail when sentenced next week.
After caving in his wife’s skull and brains in with the crowbar, Pomphret, who admitted he knew about forensic techniques because the American crime drama CSI was her favourite programme, thought he was clever enough to outsmart police.
He washed the murder weapon and dumped it in a nearby pond, before getting rid of his clothes and putting on an ‘accomplished act’ when he rang 999. Pomphret, from Winwick, near Warrington, told the operator he had found the former civil servant in a ‘pool of blood’ at the stables in nearby Burtonwood, before pleading: ‘Who has done this to my wife?
And video footage from the ambulance taking Mrs Pomphret to hospital shows her husband faking shock and recalling finding her body, saying: ‘Oh God, she’s just lying there.’ He agreed in court that he was aware of cell site analysis – the method by which police can work out where someone’s mobile phone is located – and later sent texts to his wife, who was known as Marie, asking her where she was when he knew she was already dead. In the aftermath of the murder, last November, and with little forensic evidence to go on, police who had immediately arrested Pomphret, were forced to let him go.
But, the court heard, he made one ‘huge’ mistake. Although he burned his jumper and got rid of his trousers and trainers on a motorway embankment, Pomphret forgot to change his socks. Eventually, following weeks of analysis, forensic scientists found a single speck of airborne blood on the ankle of one of them.
Detective Inspector Adam Waller said: ‘David Pomphret is a convincing liar. He was the last person to see Marie alive, he found her body and had a cut to the back of his hand when we arrested him, so he was always a very good suspect. But he did a reasonable job of covering his tracks and chose not to tell us what happened. Clothing seized when he was arrested came back negative for Marie’s blood – until we got to his socks. Although the toes were soaked in blood (from where he walked around the scene) there was one small speck – an airborne droplet consistent with him being there when the incident was taking place.’
Officers finally had the crucial piece of evidence they needed and Pomphret had no choice but to change his tune and admit killing his wife. He told the jury that he lost his ‘self-control’ after Mrs Pomphret taunted him about suffering erectile dysfunction, branded him a ‘f ****** useless’ husband and c*** parent and began calling their 18-year-old daughter, Megan, a ‘fat slag’.
He tearfully claimed he had killed ‘the woman he loved’ and only tried to cover up what he had done for Megan’s sake.
Certainly, Mrs Pomphret was, as Megan said herself in evidence, ‘not the easiest person to deal with at the best of times.’ She had been diagnosed with autism, depression and a borderline personality disorder and had spent three days in hospital having treatment for Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.
The jury was told that the Pomphrets, who lived in a £400,000 executive property, had met on the night of Mrs Pomphret’s 21st birthday and for the most part had been ‘happily’ married.
But police believe that after living for so many years with his wife’s difficulties, Pomphret had finally had enough. On the night of the murder the couple, who were reasonably well off, had been to an Asda supermarket to wait for the ‘whoopsies’ as Mrs Pomphret called them – meat and other goods reduced at the end of the day.
Officers suspect that during a ‘drive-by’ to check on their three horses, she began insulting Megan and Pomphret lost his temper.