Teen sweethearts ‘ killed dinner lady and daughter then shared a bath and watched vampire film’
TWO teenage sweethearts killed a dinner lady and her child and then watched a vampire film as they spent 36 hours in their victims’ home, a court heard. The pair stabbed Elizabeth Edwards, 49, and her daughter Katie, 13, before taking a bath together to wash off any blood, a jury was told.
They had allegedly planned the killings at a McDonald’s.
Yesterday, the boy pleaded guilty to the murders. The girl pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility due to mental illness. But she denies murder and her jury trial started yesterday. Neither can be named because they are only 15.
Opening the trial, Peter Joyce, prosecuting, said both were equally guilty. The QC said the girl held a grudge against Mrs Edwards and spent several days planning the killings with her sweetheart.
Although the boy committed the actual stabbings, Mr Joyce said the girl was party to the killings and intended that the victims should be killed.
After two consecutive nights of failed attempts to enter Mrs Edwards’ home in Spalding, Lincolnshire, the pair gained access on April 13. The boy had four large knives in his backpack. Mr Joyce
‘Planned killing at a McDonalds’
said the boy killed church-going Mrs Edwards while her daughter slept in her bedroom nearby. He murdered the teenager moments later.
‘They were both stabbed through the throat in their beds at their home,’ Mr Joyce told Nottingham Crown Court. The plan had been for the boy to kill Mrs Edwards and for the girl to kill her daughter. Mr Joyce added: ‘During the planning they had discussed how to kill them and had spoken about stabbing them in their necks, in their voice boxes so they would not make a noise.’
The boy stabbed Mrs Edwards, pinning her down while kneeling astride her. The girl ‘was able to hear [her] struggling and gurgling while the killing took place’. She went into the bedroom and saw the boy with a pillow over the mother’s head after which he checked her pulse to make sure she was dead.
Katie was then stabbed, smothered with a pillow and wrapped in a sheet because the accused girl ‘did not like the smell of blood’ that had splattered over the walls of the bedroom. Mr Joyce said shortly after the killings: ‘The girl helped the boy take off his bloodied clothes just beside where Liz Edwards’ dead body lay and they took a bath together to wash off any blood.
‘Afterwards they had watched Twilight vampire films together as they lay downstairs on a mattress in the living room.’
The killings came to light when three police officers forced their way into the house on April 15. Asked where the owners were, the girl replied: ‘Upstairs.’ The officers asked the boy what had happened and he replied: ‘Why don’t you go and see?’ After receiving a police caution, the girl suggested that the pair had planned to commit suicide after the murders.
The house had been visited three times the day before, including once by the police, because there were concerns that the mother and daughter had not been seen.
Mr Joyce said: ‘The killings had taken place on the Wednesday night or early Thursday morning.
‘It follows that the couple had spent the next 36 hours in the house together until they were discovered by police while the bodies of the victims lay upstairs.’
The pair, both 14 at the time, were arrested and the girl later allegedly told police they had formed the plan to carry out the killings the previous Saturday.
‘She added that it has all happened quite quickly and “it wasn’t torture” for the victims, which gave her peace of mind’, said Mr Joyce.
A post- mortem examination revealed Mrs Edwards also had cuts on her hands that may have been inflicted as she tried to fight off her attacker. Her injuries were not immediately fatal.
Katie died from a haemorrhage to the neck and smothering. She was found in her room strewn with her toys. The young couple sat emotionless in the dock as the case was outlined to a jury and a public gallery packed full of relatives, who wept during proceedings.
The trial continues.