Man who murdered his midwife lover jailed for life
The sister of a midwife murdered by her lover said she was “haunted” by the false comfort the killer gave the family, hours after the death.
Michael Stirling was jailed for life with a minimum term of 16 years, 299 days, at Stafford Crown Court yesterday, after previously admitting the murder of the Royal Stoke University Hospital midwife.
Stirling was brother-in-law of the victim’s former fiance John Peake, who was in court along with her younger sister Gemma Eastwood and mother Carole.
Mrs Justice Susan Carr told Stirling: “Samantha was alone in her home where she should have been safe and sound, and trusted you in her house.”
Miss Eastwood was buried by Stirling near a disused quarry in Caverswall, Staffordshire. The 32-year-old landscape gardener, of Gratton Road, Stoke, had told his wife he was out searching for then missing Miss Eastwood, while in fact he was burying her remains.
He claimed to have strangled and smothered the victim in her bedroom in a “fog of anger”, after alleging he wanted to bring their three year-affair to an end.
But in text messages sent to Miss Eastwood the day he killed her, Stirling said: “Please come back, it’s killing me. I want to give up without you.”
Prosecutor Jonas Hankin QC said Stirling was “hounding” the midwife, making 128 phone calls to her in July alone. He arrived at her home in Greenside Avenue, Stokeon-Trent, on the morning of July 27, before going to work, and returning between 12.45pm-1pm.
At 3pm, a neighbour heard a woman screaming for “between 15 to 30 seconds”, and then a woman shouting “get off, get off me”.
CCTV from a house opposite Miss Eastwood’s then showed Stirling reversing his white van up her driveway at about 5pm.
Mr Hankin said: “Shortly thereafter, the prosecution says he must have put Samantha’s body into the back of the van.”
She was reported missing by work colleagues that evening, after failing to show for her night shift.
Stirling, under what the judge called the “pretence” of going out to help look for Samantha, buried his lover near the old quarry.
Afterwards, he went to Miss Eastwood’s house, where friends and family had gathered, acting “worried and concerned”.
In court, Gemma Eastwood said: “On the night Samantha went missing, the accused had the audacity to turn up at my sister’s house... Before he left my sister’s house that night he hugged me, after he had killed my sister. Forever this will haunt me.”
The day after the killing, Stirling sent messages from Miss Eastwood’s mobile phone to her sister, pretending to be from Samantha. In those texts, he claimed the health worker was with a man she met “off the internet”.
On August 4 Stirling was seen by police, cycling back to the area of the makeshift grave to check it was undisturbed. The area was then searched and the body discovered.