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Woman convicted of mincer murder |
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A woman has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for the murder of a man whom she and her boyfriend chopped up and fed through a domestic mincer.
Karen Morris, 23, of Selly Park, Birmingham, was found guilty on Monday. Steve Parton, 40, of Perry Barr, admitted the murder at a previous hearing and has been given 18 years. Nelvaughan Brade was hit on the head with an axe and stabbed last November - his body was found on a Norfolk landfill site.
Phone calls
Opening the case against Morris last week at Birmingham Crown Court, Julia Macur QC, prosecuting, said: "The flesh had been removed almost completely from his skeleton."
Various reasons were put forward in court as possible motives for the murder.
Miss Macur said Mr Brade had been distributing cannabis Parton was growing and that the former stripper had become concerned his housemate was going to steal his 3,500-strong crop of plants.
Morris, from Kitchener Road, had had sex with Mr Brade on one occasion and he had allegedly bombarded her with phone calls when their relationship ended, threatening to stab or shoot her.
Miss Macur said the pair had also formed the opinion that Mr Brade was intending to kidnap Parton's mother and hold her until the deeds to the house were passed over to him.
Bags recovered
Mr Brade was lodging with Parton when he was shot at with a crossbow as he took a shower in the early hours of 5 November, the court heard.
The bolt missed his neck but his housemate rained blows on his head with an axe.
But Morris is thought to have dealt the fatal blow, stabbing Mr Brade in the neck.
Over the next few days, the couple dismembered Mr Brade's body and put his flesh put through a mincer.
His remains were packed into two oil drums which the couple drove more than 100 miles to throw on a skip, which was later dumped on the landfill site near King's Lynn.
The pair, who had tried to commit suicide, handed themselves in at nearby Hunstanton police station on 11 November.
A three-day search of the tip was carried out and three bin bags containing Mr Brade's organs, bones and limbs were recovered.
The defendants' butchery made it difficult to establish the exact cause of death, the court heard.
Morris was convicted after the jury rejected her claim of manslaughter due to diminished responsibility.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/england/west_midlands/4111778.stm |
