Obsessed worker guilty of killing boss

CRIME: A university worker who became obsessed with his boss has been found guilty of killing her after stabbing her 15 times and scrawling “bully” across her forehead.

David Browning left Jillian Howell on the floor of her lounge after attacking her, jurors had heard, before calling police the day after.

A UNIVERSITY worker who became obsessed with his boss has been found guilty of killing her after stabbing her 15 times and scrawling “bully” across her forehead.

David Browning left Jillian Howell on the floor of her lounge after attacking her, jurors at Hove Crown Court had heard, before calling police the following morning and admitting what he had done.

There were cheers from a packed public gallery yesterday when the verdict was announced, with Ms Howell’s friends and family hugging each other in tears outside the court.

The trial heard how Browning, a deputy to Ms Howell in the University of Brighton payroll department, was a spurned admirer who was “deeply self-centred, selfish, with a vindictive streak”.

Prosecutor Alan Gardner called him the “epitome of urban normality”, leading a stable life until it was jolted by the loss of his father who died suddenly in 2016.

Browning, of Willow Drive, Seaford, claimed he and Ms Howell clashed at work but had became friends, and he decided he had to kill her after battling depression following the bereavement. Samaritans volunteer Ms Howell, who had lost both her parents, told friends she wanted to help him and try to cheer him up by inviting him over to dinner at her Brighton home on Sandgate Road.

Browning, 52, planned the killing for months after forming an “intense attachment” to the 46-year-old and fearing she would reject him, Mr Gardner said. In the months before her death, he bought a shotgun and knife, hired a van, deleted messages and took a change of clothes to the crime scene.

His wife Deborah, who blew a kiss to him after giving evidence in court, described him as not a “particularly emotional person” who was never aggressive and had “lost his spark”, but never mentioned feeling suicidal. She said they ate dinner together as a family hours before he sat down to the meal with Ms Howell at her home, and she had not known where he was going that night.

Mr Gardner said Browning became “plainly attracted” to the single woman several years younger than him who was lending him a sympathetic ear, adding: “He discovered she didn’t have the same feelings as him. She rejected him and he reacted with anger and violence, that is the reality of the case.”

Browning insisted he had “daily” suicidal thoughts and was so depressed that at times he did not know what he was thinking, but that he had decided he “must” kill her two weeks before she died.

Nicknamed Spock for his methodical manner, he claimed to have gone into work early on the morning of Ms Howell’s death to write suicide notes, as well as a “vitriolic” letter for her close friend Sean McDonald, which he sent to a friend with instructions to post two months later. It later emerged this was part of a failed ploy to implicate Mr McDonald.

At around 6am the next morning he tried to hand himself in but found a police station closed, so he dialled 999 to say he was standing outside in the street with a knife and had attempted suicide. When officers asked what happened, he said: “In a nutshell, I have killed my boss.”

The father, who has a 21-yearold son and 17-year-old daughter, admitted manslaughter by diminished responsibility and possession of a knife in a public place, but this was rejected by the prosecution.

Browning is due to be sentenced to life imprisonment today and was warned by Judge Christine Laing that he will face a minimum of at least 25 years.

She rejected him and he reacted with anger and violence. Prosecutor Alan Gardner at Hove Crown Court.