MORE SOUTH MIDLANDS NOIR

RURBAN* NOIR DOUBLE MURDER

Between December 2009 and February 2010, two similar murders took place within a couple of miles of each other in rural South Worcestershire. The second incident occurred at Besford Court** (shown here), a luxury housing estate near Pershore. Here, an older American businessman stabbed his much younger wife, who came from Wales. The couple had met via the Internet.

An update on the earlier crime, which started a court hearing last week, is provided in the following extract from the "Worcester News" of 20 August 2010:

CHEATING HUSBAND BEAT WIFE TO DEATH

A CHEATING husband bludgeoned his wife to death at their home near Pershore - then went Christmas shopping with his mistress, a jury was told.

Jonathan Palmer used a heavy object to cause multiple fractures of the victim's skull, it was alleged.

He staged a burglary to make police believe that 57-year-old Melinda Palmer was killed by an intruder, Worcester Crown Court heard.

Palmer then drove to his lover's home in Worksop, Nottinghamshire, where he went shopping with Jackie Marshall, a single mother....***

Later he drove back to Pershore and dialled 999 at 8.27pm, telling police he had found hi wife dead in the front hall.

Prosecutor Stephen Linehan QC said: " He was cheating on her, conducting an affair with another woman. He is a skilled, determined and prolific liar and he put those skills to work after the killing"....

The trial continues.

*Rurban: Rural-Urban

** Prior to re-development as a housing estate, Besford Court was a residential school, whose pupils included John Thomas Straffen, later a convicted serial killer, and, until his death in 2007, this country's longest serving prisoner.

*** Palmer had reportedly told Miss Marshall that he was a single man.