Sado-masochistic couple murdered and dismembered victim, court told
Sado-masochistic couple murdered and dismembered victim, court told
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A couple who relished their relationship of “sado-masochistic violence” killed a woman in a “premeditated blood-thirsty murder” and dumped her dismembered body in a park, the Old Bailey has heard. Steve Sansom was out of prison on life licence for another murder when he killed Sarah Mayhew, 38, and dumped her remains in Rowdown Fields, New Addington, south London, last spring.
The 45-year-old builder and his partner Gemma Watts, 49, have admitted murder and perverting the course of justice by dismembering Ms Mayhew’s body, distributing the parts at “various locations” and cleaning up the scene. Prosecutor Tom Little KC told the court that messages between Sansom and Watts show their relationship was “characterised by sado-masochistic violence” and “such was the intensity of their relationship that they have often referred to dying together if caught”.
He said: “The defendants acting together conducted the planned and premeditated blood-thirsty murder of Sarah Mayhew. “It is a murder which the prosecution submit involved sexual and/or sadistic conduct. “Having committed the murder they then made very extensive efforts to pervert the course of justice over a number of days.
“Prior to the murder the defendants had exchanged a range of depraved messages including those indicating a desire on their part to kill victims whilst involved in sexual activity with them, with a knife or knives, and then have sex with each other whilst covered in the blood of the victim and they even discussed eating human flesh but we do not suggest they did so.”.
