Inspector denies killing detective wife after debt row
A POLICE inspector who was more than £100,000 in debt strangled his detective wife and then dumped her body in a lake after she challenged him over a loan application, a court has heard.
Darren Mckie, 43, and his wife Leanne, 39, were living “well beyond their means” and were under “considerable financial pressure” when her body was found in a lake near their Cheshire home.
Opening the case at Chester Crown Court, Nigel Power QC, said: “She was in shallow water, but she hadn’t drowned. She had been strangled to death.”
The couple, who had three children, met through work and married in 2004, and both worked for Greater Manchester Police. Mrs Mckie was a detective constable working in the Serious Sexual Offences Unit of Greater Manchester Police (GMP).
The jury was told that Mrs Mckie first discovered her husband’s financial difficulties in 2012 when she told her mother that he had run up £20,000 on a credit card. They had a joint monthly income of £3,933, but they also had four credit cards, three active loans, six finance agreements and a mortgage.
On the day she died she challenged her husband about a £54,000 loan application he had made on her behalf, the jury heard. In a text message she wrote: “You liar! Just got back a loan application with my passport and my name... Are we in such a mess?… What’s going on.” He replied: “I’m coming home.”
Mr Mckie, of Wilmslow, denies murder. The trial continues.