Pensioner ‘ killed wife in a drive- by shooting’
A “MONEY- obsessed” man murdered his estranged wife in a drive- by shooting just days after he was ordered to pay her £ 10,000, a court has heard.
Michael Reader, 70, is said to have put a tracker on 63- year- old Marion Price’s car before laying in wait for her near her home in a quiet village.
He drove past her car moments after she parked and shot her once through the car window before she had the chance to take off her seatbelt, jurors were told. Previously he attacked her with a mallet, she had reported.
Relatives found Marion’s body in her Vauxhall Corsa a few hours later.
She was declared dead at the scene in Earls Barton, Northants.
Mary Loram QC, prosecuting, told Northampton Crown Court that the grandmother of three had married Reader in 2012 after they met via online dating in 2011.
When their marriage hit the rocks in 2017, he went around the house, slamming doors and threatening: “If you leave me, I’ll kill you”, Ms Loram said. The couple separated but Reader allegedly told Marion he “would do anything to make sure she was left with nothing”. She ended up handing him £ 54,000, the court was told.
A judge made the £ 10,000 financial order on December 9 last year. Six days later Marion was dead.
Ms Loram told the jury this week: “Any one of you hearing what happened must be wondering who would want to shoot a grandmother who lived in the village of Earls Barton.
“This wasn’t some terrible robbery gone wrong. Apart from the fact this quiet, new residential development seems an unlikely place for a desperate thief to lie in wait, Marion’s handbag was still in the footwell of her car with her purse and money in place.”
She described Reader as a “controlling husband” who carried out the “cold, calculated murder” because he bitterly resented having to pay her the cash. Ms Loram said: “He was a man obsessed with money and it was a theme of his separation from Marion that he did not want to part with it.”
Throughout their marriage, he coerced her into handing over thousands of pounds, the court heard. He also kept large amounts of money in the house and had several bank accounts despite not working, while Marion was a school finance controller, Ms Loram said.
On May 3, 2017, after they had separated, Marion emailed Reader to say she would no longer pay his bills, the lawyer went on.
The following day he allegedly arrived at her mother’s house and demanded another £ 60,000 from Marion. Ms Loram said: “He became aggressive and produced a mallet from his jacket. He hit her over the head with it, and when she put her hands up to protect herself, he hit her again and again.”
Reader stood trial for GBH in 2018 and was found not guilty – which had a “profound” effect on Marion, and she left her job, jurors were told.
After she was killed, a police bodycam shows him answering the door while eating a Magnum ice cream with snooker on the TV in the background.
Ms Loram said he was assisted before and after the shooting by his friend Stephen Welch. Reader, from Northampton, and Welch, 61, from Kingsthorpe, Northants, deny murder.
The trial continues.