Jury in trial of Mark Brown, 41, accused of murdering two sex workers retires to consider verdict
Jury in trial of builder, 41, accused of murdering two sex workers six months apart retires to consider verdict
- Mark Brown, 41, is accused of killing escorts Leah Ware and Alexandra Morgan
- Prosecutors allege he murdered both women and incinerated their bodies
- Ms Ware vanished in May 2021 while Ms Morgan disappeared last November
- A jury at the trial at Hove Crown Court has now retired to consider their verdict
A jury has retired to decide the verdict in a double murder trial.
The trial of Mark Brown, who is accused of murdering two escorts six months apart in 2021, came to a close today at Hove Crown Court, East Sussex.
The jury of 10 men and two women must now decide whether Brown is guilty of murdering 33-year-old Leah Ware in May 2021, and Alexandra Morgan, 34, last November.
Brown, 41, hired both women as escorts through the same adult services website.
Mark Brown, 41, of Squirrel Close, St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex, is charged with murdering Leah Ware (left), 33, and Alexandra Morgan (right), 34, six months apart in 2021
At Hove Crown Court, Brown (pictured) claimed Ms Morgan died in an accident at the farm after slipping and hitting her head – and he disposed of her body ‘in a panic’ and that Ms Ware is alive and well
His relationship with Ms Ware deepened and was ‘on again, off again’ from 2018 until early 2021.
Brown is accused of killing Ms Ware on or around May 7, 2021, following increased tension and arguments as she pressed him to leave his partner of 14 years, Lisa Clark.
Ms Ware lived in a converted shipping container at a farm Brown rented – Little Bridge Farm near Hastings, East Sussex – and it is alleged she was killed at the farm and her body disposed of by fire in an oil drum incinerator.
Ms Morgan’s remains were disposed of in the same way, the prosecution said, after Brown killed her at the farm on November 14, 2021.
Mark Brown denies murdering Alexandra Morgan (pictured on CCTV on November 14 at a petrol station), 34, from Sissinghurst, Kent. He admitted that he had lied to police about the disappearance of Miss Morgan because he did not think they would believe it was an accident after she ‘tripped on a banana skin like a cartoon character’
Police have been unable to find the remains of Leah Ware (pictured), 33, after she went missing on May 7 last year but Brown told different people she had been ‘sectioned’, sent to ‘a mental hospital’ or had ‘killed herself’
He then dumped the oil drum in a skip at the building site he worked at in Sevenoaks, Kent.
In his defence, Brown claimed Ms Morgan died in an accident at the farm after slipping and hitting her head – and he disposed of her body ‘in a panic’ because the sight ‘looked like a murder scene’.
Brown, of Squirrel Close in St Leonards on Sea, East Sussex, claimed that as far as he knows, Ms Ware is still alive and well.