SCOTS MUM’S HAMMER MURDERER FACES LIFE
Thug smashed Nicola’s skull then stole her benefits cash
BRUTAL lodger Richard Canlin was found guilty yesterday of murdering his disabled Scots landlady with a claw hammer and dumping her in a wheelie bin.
He smashed mum-of-two Nicola Stevenson’s skull in a frenzied attack after she told him to leave her flat.
Canlin then tried to hide the 39-year-old’s body in a suitcase before putting it in the bin, where it remained for five weeks. He raided her bank account and spent her disability benefits.
He will be sentenced today to life in prison.
Nicola was from Edinburgh but was living in Lewes, East Sussex, when she took in homeless and unemployed
Canlin, 42, last year. They took drugs together but he became abusive and she wanted him out.
She rang police on 101 about Canlin but the call was never picked up, and two emails she sent to a local detective were only answered after the officer returned fromholidayfromholiday five days later.
Canlin killed Nicola last October with a hammer she kept for protection. He struck her 11 times. The attack was so severe that her skull was almost split in two.
Nicola had a form of dwarfism and used a mobility scooter. She had no chance of resisting the assault. Hours later, Canlin was wa filmed at a cashpoint cas waiting for Nicola’s Nico benefits to clear. He uused her money to buy an XBox and a snooker snoo table, and picked up heher drug prescriptions. Canlin, Can who also killed his dodog with a hammer in 2013, made himself at home in Nicola’s flat and toldto neighbours he was the new tenant. Police found the murder weapon weapo and a bloody mattress in bins outside. Canlin’s DNA was on the hammer. A jury at Lewes Crown Court took about three hours to convict Canlin of murder. He stood with his thumb to to his lips as the unanimous verdict was read.