Spalding double murders: How Kim Edwards and Lucas Markham, two teen lovers murdered the girl’s mother and sister before watching vampire films.
Gripping the UK is the macabre case of the Spalding double murders which involved 14 year local teens, Kim Edwards and her boyfriend Lucas Markham murdering Edwards’ mother and sister at their home in Lincolnshire, in April 2016.
Murdered were Elizabeth Edwards, 49, and her daughter Katie Edwards, 13, at their Dawson Avenue family home in Spalding, having been stabbed no less than ten times in the neck as they slept.
Upon killing their victims, the teen lovers proceeded to watch the vampire film series, ‘The Twilight ’ before being arrested soon after.
The Spalding double murders led to Edwards and Markham bearing the distinction of being Britain’s youngest double murderers.
Come, October, 2016 the couple were sentenced to life with a minimum 20 years each prison sentence being served before being eligible for parole. At a later date, the teens were eligible to apply for parole after serving 17 and a half years.
At the time, because of the nature of the crime and the age of the perpetrators, the names of the perpetrators had been sealed. Until this weekend.
A bid to stop the Spalding double murder perpetrators names being made public was rejected by the High Court reported the bbc.
Court testimony included the boyfriend admitting to the killings, having used a kitchen knife to stab both mother and sister in the neck a total of ten times as they slept.
Edwards, who helped to plan the ‘cold, calculated and callous’ killings, denied murder, claiming to be suffering a mental abnormality which impaired her ability to form rational judgments. Nevertheless the girl was was found guilty by a jury at Nottingham Crown Court after admitted manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
During initial questioning by detectives, the girlfriend told of feeling depressed and suicidal. Despite having attempted suicide around a month before the killings, jurors rejected the girl’s claim she was suffering from a mental disorder which impaired her ability to form rational judgments.
During testimony, it was heard how the love-struck teenagers’ had meticulously planned the murders before carrying them out ‘to the letter’.
Leading into the macabre deaths, it was described how, Markham walked for around 30 minutes along Spalding’s Coronation Channel to reach Edwards’ home before knocking three times on a bedroom window as a pre-arranged signal that he had arrived.
Edwards then opened a bathroom window to allow Markham to climb into the house from the roof of a shed, and gave him advice on moving quietly around the property before pouncing on the soon to be victims.
The girlfriend, who did not physically take part in the killings, told police she heard her mother ‘struggling and gurgling’ along with hearing her sister, Katie saying ‘I can’t breathe’ as she was in turn set upon.
Evidence heard in the trial, but unpublished until now, revealed that the couple remained at the house in Dawson Avenue immediately after the killings where they had sex, shared a bath and watched the vampire-themed teen romance Twilight films.
The teens were arrested some 36 hours later, having been reported missing to police.
It was thought the teen lovers had planned the macabre double murder, the outcome of an intense ‘toxic’ relationship that family members had come to be uneasy about.
Kim resented her mother, Elizabeth, and disliked her sister, Katie, for the close relationship she had with their mum.
Drawn together by suicidal thoughts the couple convinced each the solution to the grudge she held against her mum was to kill her and her teenage sister.
Told the prosecution to the jury before being asked to return with their verdict: ‘You know in fact who the driver was between these two. She only had to say no and it would never, ever have happened.
‘It is really quite clear her hatred for her mother drove this ever onwards.’
Recalled a psychologist, Dr Joseph of what the girlfriend had told him to the court, ‘I don’t miss my mum and I am glad she’s dead even though I am now in a sticky situation.
‘She deserved it. I am glad she’s dead. We felt laid back about what we had done and neither of us felt that bad about it.’
The court also had heard of Kim Edwards having gone into foster care in 2008 after an incident in which she was struck by her mother while living at a caravan site.
Local authority records made public at Edwards’ trial showed she had ‘long-standing’ differences with her mother and sister from around the age of six.
Outlining his reasons for lifting the ban, Justice Haddon-Cave initially wrote in December: ‘It is impossible for the public properly to understand this case without knowing the identity of the defendants and that these murders took place in a closed family context.
‘This singular fact informs and colors one’s entire understanding of the case… unless one knows this singular fact, it is impossible to understand the true motive behind these murders.’
Upholding the trial judge’s view, the ban on naming the pair was lifted by Sir Brian Leveson, Mr Justice Blake and Mr Justice Lewis.
Sir Brian said: ‘In the circumstances of this case, notwithstanding that the appellants are only 15 years of age, we have no doubt that the lifting of reporting restrictions is in accordance with law, pursues a legitimate aim and is a reasonable and proportionate measure … properly balancing the welfare of the appellants … against the Article 10 rights of the press and the interests of the public.’
Objecting to the decision to reveal the teen’s identities, Det Supt Martin Holvey, of Lincolnshire Police, said the ‘horrific and brutal’ murders had shocked the community and the naming of the teenage killers would only add to that.
‘I’m sure that sense of disbelief and horror will be deepened now it is known that it was Elizabeth’s own daughter who was responsible for plotting with her boyfriend to carry out the murders,’ the policeman said.
Perhaps equally daunting was the revelation that after the double murders, detectives having found a note of the girlfriend’s apparent intention to take her own life after the killings.
Read the note written by Edwards in a pink diary found at the family home: ‘F*** you world. I want to be cremated and I want mine and Lucas’s ashes scattered at our special place. We don’t give a f*** any more.’
