Jealous ex strangled mother after hiding in her attic all night
A JEALOUS killer hid in his ex-girlfriend’s loft overnight before throttling her to death the next morning.
William Mack lay in wait before confronting Leanne Wall on the landing and strangling her with a belt.
A court heard how despite her ‘flourishing’ career in finance, Miss Wall had started a relationship with serial criminal Mack and they moved in together.
They finally split because of his obsessive paranoia over the ‘imbalance’ between their prospects. But after she ordered him out, 39year-old Mack took a sleeping bag along with food and drink and sneaked back into the home he had shared with her and their 16month-old daughter.
Miss Wall, 36, suspected he might be in the house after finding the kettle was still warm, but when she challenged him by text he replied: ‘Everything is locked, how could I get in you weirdo?’ She also rang a friend to say she had heard noises but thought it was her dog. Waking at 7am the next day, she went to check on their daughter but found Mack – who had spent more than 16 hours in the attic – in front of her. He headbutted her then throttled her before dumping her body on her bed and fleeing, telling police who later arrested him walking on a motorway hard shoulder: ‘I just snapped.’
The toddler was found unharmed in her cot and was taken to neighbours and is now being raised by her grandparents.
Yesterday, a judge rejected Mack’s claims that he was remorseful after the killer launched an astonishing courtroom rant.
He told Judge Patrick Field QC at Manchester Crown Court: ‘I’m sick of sitting here and listening to you rip into me. It’s all lies. If she didn’t want to be with me, why would she buy me two coats for Valentine’s Day? You’ve torn my life apart.’
Mack admitted murder and was jailed for life with a minimum of 16 years.
Branding the murder a ‘callous, calculated, pre-meditated and planned killing’, the judge said he rejected Mack’s contention that he had hidden in the house in order to simply scare Miss Wall.
He added: ‘You have deprived your infant daughter of the love and support of her mother and she will bear the great burden of this awful loss for the rest of her life.’
Earlier the court heard Miss Wood worked as a business risk co-ordinator at a wealth management company and owned her own home in Whitefield, Greater Manchester. She met jobless Mack in 2005 and they began a relationship, despite her knowing he was a career criminal who had been jailed for offences including assault and drugs.
Prosecutor Rob Hall said: ‘Family members, friends and neighbours couldn’t understand why Leanne Wall found him attractive because it was well known he had been to prison and was still offending.
‘He moved into her home but was falling deeper and deeper into paranoia. The imbalance between the defendant and Miss Wall,
‘Feared she would be unfaithful to him’
who had her own home and a flourishing career, contributed to his paranoia and fear she would be unfaithful to him.
‘He had formed the view that if he couldn’t be in a relationship with her, then no one else could.’ Police were twice called to the house during the couple’s relationship. Mack once barricaded himself in a bedroom threatening to harm himself. He also smelled her clothes when she returned from work to try and detect if she had been seeing other men.
The couple split in 2015 but in January Miss Wall rang 999 saying Mack had threatened to blow the house up by leaving the gas on.
On February 11 – the day of her death– she said he had contacted her parents claiming she had been unfaithful. He had also threatened to kill her in chilling texts to a friend in the days running up to the murder. One read: ‘Can’t cope with this any more. I will take her out soon if this is not sorted out.’
Michael Lavery, defending, said: ‘ He thought she had gone to work when he came down from the attic and lost control when he saw her. He acted abhorrently and is disgusted with himself for it.’