Murder case teens dragged mattress downstairs and had sex as victims lay dead in their beds
A GIRL of 14 and her 15-yearold boyfriend had sex in a house after carrying out a horrific double killing, a jury heard yesterday.
Dinner lady Elizabeth Edwards, 49, and her daughter Katie, 13, had their throats slashed in April.
After the boy had stabbed and smothered his victims, the sweethearts had a bath, ate ice cream, watched the vampire movie Twilight and had sex on a mattress they had dragged downstairs, while the bodies lay in their beds, the court was told.
The trial heard the girl, now 15, said she was ‘excited and looking forward’ to the killings and that Mrs Edwards ‘deserved it’.
She is being tried for murder after pleading guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. Her boyfriend, also now 15, has admitted double murder.
On day three of the trial at Nottingham Crown Court, the young couple’s relationship was described as ‘unhealthy and toxic’ and a ‘time bomb’.
Psychiatrist Indranit Chakrabarti, for the defence, argued that the girl’s judgment was impaired by an ‘adjustment disorder’, criteria for which includes the inability to plan ahead.
‘She was unable to exercise self-control as a result of the medical condition that she was suffering from, in my opinion,’ he said.
But prosecutor Peter Joyce QC said the planning before the deaths in Spalding, Lincolnshire, ‘ruined the theory’.
‘The plan was gone over and over and over again,’ he said.
‘There was no inability to plan here. Planning to take a bath, planning to take a mattress downstairs, planning to take a contraceptive pill, planning to have sex – which they did, after the killings.’
He added: ‘No remorse, having sex... watching Twilight – how does this all fit in with your adjustment disorder? The plan ruins your theory of loss of self-control, doesn’t it?’
Dr Philip Joseph, a consultant criminal psychiatrist, also rejected the view that the schoolgirl had any mental illness and found her ‘inappropriately upbeat’ in his interview with her. He told the court: ‘She said to me about the killing: “I was carrying on as normal at school and what was going on in lessons. No one knew about the plan. I felt excited about it and I was looking forward to it”.’
During the interview last month, the girl also said of Mrs Edwards: ‘She deserved it.
‘I’m glad she’s dead even though I’m in a sticky situation. We felt laid-back about what we had done and neither of us felt that bad.’
Dr Joseph, who has assessed more than 800 murderers, refuted the suggestion that the girl had a mental disorder and added: ‘ She has not
‘Intense, toxic relationship’
expressed any remorse.’ He said: ‘The reality… is fundamentally about the relationship between her and [the boy]. It is clear if they hadn’t got together and had this intense, toxic relationship, this would never have happened. I can’t believe she would have killed without [the boy].
‘If she had been suffering from an adjustment disorder at the time of the killings then she would not still be expressing satisfaction that [the victim] is dead. She does not have a defence to murder of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.’ The court heard how the teenage pair started dating in May 2015 and were soon ‘inseparable’.
In interviews, the girl described how she first became aware of the boy in Year 8, when they were both 12, and he threw a chair across a classroom.
‘She was quiet [by nature] and startled by his behaviour,’ Dr Joseph said.
She first met him through a mutual friend, when all three realised they shared the same world view.
She told Dr Joseph: ‘We discovered that we all had the same attitude to life: That it was s*** and it was going downhill and it was only going to get worse.’
She had a ‘major crush’ on the boy and was jealous of her friend, but then found out that he had a ‘major crush’ on her too.
The boy asked her out via Facebook and the girl – who was often suicidal – described how ‘afterwards … things started going well for once’.
She added: ‘When we went back to school after summer everyone knew we were an item.’
The pair soon began a sexual relationship, which the girl said was ‘the first time for both of us’.
Dr Joseph said: ‘She said: “Our relationship was very intense – we saw each other every day”.’
The trial continues.