Grieving widower’s anger as man who killed and mutilated wife freed
AKILLER has been freed from prison despite getting a life sentence for a murder described during his trial as “gruesome to the extreme”.
Keith Valentine shot and stabbed his neighbour, mother-of-six Isabelle Lewis, before dismembering her body.
The court was told that parts of the 38-year-old’s corpse were found hanging in carrier bags off railings near a children’s play area and in black plastic bags over Addington Court golf course in Croydon, Surrey, following her disappearance on September 1, 1998.
Valentine was sentenced to a life sentence at the Old Bailey in 2000 but
a Parole Board panel directed his release in 2017.
Now Mrs Lewis’ widower, Peter, 64, who lives in Swansea, has condemned the decision to free Valentine, saying: “I would not wish this on anybody – not even my worst enemy. The evidence was enough to make anybody’s stomach turn.
“If they said he would never see daylight again we would never have to think about it again. I believe he
will kill again – someone’s life will be the price of his liberty.
“He never said he was sorry. He’s admitted to police he killed and said, ‘Can I go home?’ They told him, ‘It does not work like that, Keith’. He admitted killing her but that it was not wrong. I felt betrayed really, I know how dangerous he is.”
He added: “Knowing how he is on the streets again and how dangerous he is is difficult for my family and Isabelle’s family. I feel disgusted and fearful, I do not know where he has gone. They told me he had been released.
“It could be anybody’s daughter, it could be anybody’s wife and I believe if he gets a target he will kill. He would watch Isabelle going to the shops through the telescopic sight of his rifle.”
During a trial at the Old Bailey a jury heard that Mrs Lewis’ remains began appearing shortly after she was last seen, on September 1, 1998.
Following the death of the couple’s two-year-old daughter, Cherie, in 1994, Mrs Lewis had suffered depression and was occasionally living apart from her husband and four boys. Mr Lewis reported her missing. Valentine was not arrested until 13 months later.
A neighbour reported seeing him walking towards the golf course clutching bin bags in the days following Mrs Lewis’ murder following a fresh appeal for information.
When police searched Valentine’s flat they found traces of her blood and bits of her shoes and trousers cut up.
A bag containing eight knives with serrated edges and a rifle were also found, though Valentine denied knowing Mrs Lewis.
He claimed to police that Mrs Lewis died accidentally when an air rifle went off. He said he dismembered her body because he feared noone would believe his story.
Sentencing Valentine to life, Mr Justice Blofeld had told him: “It is difficult for a normal human being to understand what made you kill this unfortunate woman and what made you, having perpetrated such a brutal killing, stab her many times and mutilate her as you did.”
Mr Lewis said: “When the verdict was read out two of the women on the jury were crying. Two of her sisters were taken to the site of the murder and saw pieces of her remains.
“One of his pleas was insanity. He was evil and not mad, he was calculating.”
Mr Lewis said he believed his wife’s murderer should have been treated in the same way as black cab serial rapist John Worboys by the Parole Board and never have been released.
“Worboys never killed anybody but he ruined the lives of hundreds of women,” he said.
“I had already lost all faith in the Parole Board, I was disgusted not shocked. I am glad Worboys is not being released but it’s not the same for an evil killer? A monster?”
Mr Lewis has further troubling suspicions about his wife’s killer because parts of her body were never found.
“We did not bury Isabelle, we buried parts of her,” he said.
“[Valentine] was calculating and had forensic knowledge. Did he try cannibalism? I would not put it past him. He wanted to know how everything worked.
“The police said we buried 97% of Isabelle but I do not think it was that much.
“He killed Isabelle with a knife and a gun, he thought mutilating her was nothing.
“He can do what he did to Isabelle and just go home. We should not be soft on murderers or rapists – it’s the only solution. The Parole Board do not consider the dangers these wrongly wired individuals pose to the public.”
A sepia image of teenage Isabelle standing in her home in Belfast with her younger brother Robert sits in pride of place among the 14 photographs on the Welsh dresser in Peter’s living-room.
Valentine not only claimed her life but those of her brothers and her parents, says Peter.
“Robert died of a heart attack after the court case happened at the Old Bailey,” he said. “After Isabelle died both her mum and dad died within a fortnight of each other – with their brother’s death as well it was difficult for Isabelle’s family losing everyone all of a sudden.
“Isabelle was not just my wife but she was my carer as I was disabled then – she was my best friend and a mother to my kids. I have been the best father that I can be but I am not the best mother.
“Life never goes back to normal, it won’t go back to normal since the day he killed Isabelle; my boys have suffered. It’s left a scar that just does not heal – we have lost a chunk of our lives.”
A spokesman for the Parole Board said: “We can confirm that a panel of the Parole Board has directed the release of Keith Valentine, following an oral hearing in October 2017.
“The decision to release is a matter for the Parole Board, which is independent.
“Once the Parole Board has directed the release of a prisoner, it is a matter for the Ministry of Justice to make the arrangements.”