Teenage girl found guilty of murdering mother and daughter0:35
A 15 year-old girl has been found guilty of the murders of Elizabeth and Katie Edwards who were smothered to death in Spalding, England. Courtesy: Sky News
Elizabeth Edwards, left, and daughter Katie were murdered. Picture: Facebook
WARNING: Graphic details
A TEEN girl who watched Twilight with her boyfriend after brutally killing a mother and daughter has been found guilty of their murder.
Elizabeth Edwards, 49, and her youngest daughter Katie were found dead after the girl and a boy — both 14 at the time — stabbed them in their throats as they slept, The Sun reports.
The court heard that the pair ate cake and ice cream after the murders, watching the movie Twilight before having sex.
The boy, now 15, has become one of the youngest ever double murderers after admitting two counts of murder at Nottingham Crown Court in the UK.
The girl, who is also now 15, admitted manslaughter but denied murder, claiming to be suffering an abnormality of mental function which impaired her ability to form rational judgments. It took a jury of seven men and five women two hours and 30 minutes to find her guilty of both charges by unanimous verdict.
Elizabeth Edwards with her partner Graham Green before she was murdered. Picture: Facebook/Graham GreenSource:Supplied
Both killers face indefinite detention at Her Majesty’s pleasure — the juvenile equivalent of a life term for an adult. The teens will be sentenced at a later date and the judge has set an anonymity hearing for November 9.
The “Twilight Killers” are the youngest ever couple to be convicted of double murder in the UK.
The girl sobbed as she heard the verdict in the glass-panelled dock at Nottingham Crown Court wearing a black cardigan and black leggings.
Mr Justice Haddon-Cave thanked the jury for doing “their public duty” and told the court: “This has been a difficult and important case. I would like to pay tribute to the police and those who have investigated this matter. It’s an exceptional case by any standards. I would like to pay tribute to the quiet dignity shown by those in the public gallery.”
During the trial, jurors heard the girl was the “driver” behind a “cold and brutal” plot to kill a Elizabeth and Katie.
In his closing speech prosecutor Peter Joyce QC said “brutality and contempt oozes from every pore of this girl” and she held the lives of her alleged victims as cheaply as she would “a hamster or a goldfish”.
He told the jury: “You know from her police interview just how determined those two children were to take two lives. You know just how callous they were, just how cold they were. You know how they planned it and you know in awful detail how they carried it out. But you also know this girl was the driver between those two. She told the police: ‘We made sure that we were definitely OK with it and he continuously asked me if I still wanted to go through with it and I said yes’.”
Katie Edwards was found dead with her throat slashed. Picture: Facebook/Katie EdwardsSource:Facebook
Katie Edwards was killed by a teen who had contempt “oozing from every pore.” Picture: Facebook/Katie EdwardsSource:Facebook
Mr Joyce added: “Just imagine that scene by the riverbank, the boy asking his girlfriend: ‘Do you want to go through with it? Do you really want to do this? Are you sure?’ It would never ever of happened if she had said no. He was offering not to do it. She could have stopped him.
“She couldn’t bring herself to do it so she got him to. He showed her how she should do it, how she should hold the knife.
“[She showed] Sheer brutality and utter contempt for her victims. It oozes from every pore of that girl in that interview. Afterwards she said she felt ‘a bit sad’. A bit sad — as if it was a goldfish or a hamster.”
Dr Indranit Chakrabarti had previously told the court that the girl’s adjustment disorder prevented her from forming a “rational judgment” and having the ability to plan.
Giving evidence, the child psychiatrist said: “She was thinking under the influence of a recognised medical condition. She was unable to make any rational judgment and could not plan, these are symptoms of the adjustment disorder.”
Prosecutor Peter Joyce QC said: “She was thinking clearly enough to unwrap from the backpack the shirt with four knives. When (the boy) goes into the mother’s room she sees he’s deviated from the plan because she whispers ‘take your shoes off’. This is a girl who is thinking about what she has planned and what she is doing.” He told the court the teenage girl was “the one in control”.
Elizabeth Edwards was found dead at her home in Spalding. Picture: Facebook/Graham GreenSource:Supplied
But Dr Chakrabarti told the court that while the girl had “logical” thoughts, she was not necessarily “rational”, saying: “You are focusing on one aspect of the disorder.”
He said that the young girl was “unable to cope” because of her medical condition.
Dr Chakrabarti said: “Her condition meant she was not able to comprehend because of the stress that she was under.”
The trial heard that the young couple carried out the plan “to the letter”.
The court had previously heard how the girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was “excited” at the prospect of murdering Elizabeth.
The girl told police “I’d felt like murdering for quite a while” after she and her boyfriend killed the mother and daughter. She said she and her boyfriend had “a grudge” against Elizabeth and Katie.
The teenage sweethearts have also been described as being like “a time bomb waiting to go off” after they had become inseparable in the weeks before the murders. He said the young couple had planned to have a bath afterwards to clean off “the inevitable blood after the killings.”
The court previously heard that the plan started as “a joke” that “escalated”.
The young girl told police: “He was joking. Then he realised I wasn’t joking. Then he said he wasn’t joking either and it escalated from there.”
The boy and girl were accused of hatching the plot to kill from a McDonalds three days before the attack.
The girl told cops in an interview: “He constantly asked me if I wanted to go through with it and I was, like, yes and I asked him and he said yes. We decided on the Sunday, but I had felt like murdering for quite a while.”
Katie Edwards (left) and her mother Elizabeth Edwards were found dead in their Spalding home. Picture: Facebook/Graham GreenSource:Supplied
Describing the killings, the girl said: “He gave me his backpack. I opened it slowly because I didn’t want to make too much noise. I took out a black T-shirt with four knives in it. There were two large knives with black handles, like average kitchen knives. He said are you sure you want to do this? I said yes, but then in the end I couldn’t do it so he did it.”
Churchgoing Elizabeth told the boy to “get off” her and was heard “struggling and gurgling”, jurors heard.
Nottingham Crown Court heard how her 13-year-old daughter Katie died moments later after the boy crept into their rooms and repeatedly stabbed them in the throat as they slept.
A jury was told the girl walked in while the boy was on top of Elizabeth, touched her hand and asked “is she dead?” She later told detectives she heard the victims try to scream “get off me” after having their vocal cords cut.
The 13-year-old victim mumbled the words: “I can’t” in a “scary voice” which was “all croaky”, the court heard.
Jurors heard how the teens planned the killings during regular walks along a riverbank in Spalding, Lincolnshire, and discussed in detail how they would target the victims’ necks.
It was said the boy then suffocated his victims with their own pillows while his female accomplice listened to them “struggling and gurgling” at around midnight on April 13.
A court heard the couple planned to kill themselves with pills and the girl left a suicide note which read: “F**k you, world. I want to be cremated and want our ashes scattered at our special place”.
Kristen Stewart (as Bella) and Robert Pattinson (as Edward) in a scene from film The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. The teen killers watched Twilight after brutally killing a mother and daughter. Picture: SuppliedSource:Supplied
This story originally appeared in The Sun and has been republished here with permission.