49-year-old canteen worker Elizabeth Edwards, and her 13-year-old daughter Katie, were smothered and brutally stabbed in their home in Spalding, Lincolnshire, this past April. They were attacked by two unnamed fifteen year old teenagers, a male and a female, who are being given life sentences with 20 year minimum terms for a violent crime that showed 'remarkable premeditation', and which has been claimed as being the result of violent and dark fantasies., as well as twisted relationship games
The killers were candid
The judge, Mr Justice Haddon-Cave, when sentencing the youths at Nottingham Crown Court, referred to the crimes as 'grotesque', with, as he put it, 'defining and particularly chilling' elements.
The court heard how Mrs Edwards was stabbed first, twice in the throat, to prevent alerting her daughter, who in turn, was stabbed twice, with incredible force by the girl, before being smothered in her bed.
Afterwards, the teen couple, compared to Bonnie and Clyde during the trial, shared a bath, had under-aged sex, and watched four of the horror romance Twilight films. In his closing statement after sentencing, Justice Haddon-Cave said to the two youths, 'I see no reason to distinguish between you in any way. Had you been adults you may have been facing the whole of your lives in prison for this double Murder.'
The pair pleaded guilty to manslaughter
At a hearing in September, the pair submitted to what they had done.
The boy's defense, Simon Myerson QC, said that the two youths became 'trapped in a fantasy of their own devising', and the boy claimed he agreed to kill because the girl did not like 'the smell of blood'. Andrew Stubbs QC, defending the girl, said that the killings resulted from egging each other on, when it came down to who would commit the murder.
After the case was finished, Deputy Chief Crown Prosecutor for the East Midlands, Karen Thompson, said that, 'Our deepest sympathies are now with the extended family and friends of Elizabeth and Katie Edwards.'
