Domestic abuser stabbed ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend to loss of life
A person with a stunning historical past of home violence murdered his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend shortly after being arrested for threatening to kill them and launched on bail simply two days earlier, a court docket heard at this time.
Personal coach Marcus Osborne, 35, lay in look ahead to Katie Higton, 27, and launched a ‘ferocious and cruel’ assault – brutally stabbing her to loss of life when she walked within the door after an evening out with Steven Harnett.
He then messaged Mr Harnett, 25, on psychological well being nurse Miss Higton’s cellphone and ‘lured’ him to her home in Huddersfield to his loss of life, Leeds Crown Court was advised.
Osborne additionally attacked Mr Harnett when he walked by the door and stabbed him to loss of life.
He gruesomely reduce off the sufferer’s penis whereas he was nonetheless alive, prosecutor Jonathan Sandiford revealed.
Marcus Osborne, 35, has been jailed for all times for the double murders in Huddersfield
Katie Higton, 27, was killed after returning house from a date together with her new boyfriend
Steven Harnett, 25, was additionally killed by Marcus Osborne on May 15 final yr
Miss Higton had been stabbed 99 occasions within the frenzied assault whereas Mr Harnett obtained 24 knife wounds.
Moments after the double slaughter, Osborne stated: ‘Romeo and Julie can die collectively now, cannot they?’
The court docket heard 4 youngsters had been in the home on the time and a lady who was with them was additionally raped by Osborne following the murders.
Osborne had been obsessively jealous following the break up together with his accomplice of 5 years.
He had been stalking Miss Higton and hacked her social media after she left him two weeks earlier following one other brutal bodily assault.
Threats from Osborne put Miss Higton in concern of her life and he or she went to the police to make a criticism towards him.
Mr Sandiford stated she gave a press release to police in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, on May 11 final yr and stated Osborne advised her if she ‘ever obtained a brand new boyfriend he would kill them each’.
Osborne was arrested the next day however was launched later that very same day on situation he did not return to the household house or have contact with Miss Higton.
The court docket heard Osborne was seen ‘pacing up and down’ on the street exterior the household house in Huddersfield on May 14.
Miss Higton went out that evening for a cinema date with Mr Harnett, with whom she had simply begun a relationship.
She had shared a poignant {photograph} on Snapchat simply hours earlier than she was killed by Osborne.
The court docket heard Osborne knew of their pairing and was seething with jealousy.
He broke into the home shortly after midnight, armed himself with a kitchen knife and brutally beat unconscious a lady in the home who he ‘held captive’ there.
When Miss Higton arrived house by taxi after 1am, Osborne was seen to stab her repeatedly within the corridor.
Her remaining phrases had been: ‘Marcus, I am unable to breathe.’
Mr Sandiford stated the scene was likened to a ‘horror story’ with ‘blood pouring’ all over the place.
The court docket heard how after killing Miss Higton, Osborne posed as her on her cellphone and messaged Mr Harnett on Snapchat to ask him over at 2.15am.
The prosecutor stated of Mr Harnett: ‘He took the lure and agreed to return.’
He was advised to return in by the facet door – stopping him from seeing his girlfriend’s physique – earlier than being stabbed to loss of life as quickly as he went inside.
Osborne heartlessly advised the lady in the home, ‘That was fast and simple’, earlier than including: ‘Romeo and Juliet can die collectively now, cannot they?’
The subsequent morning Osborne contacted neighbours and confirmed them the our bodies, although the lady in the home was capable of go away with the youngsters and alerted police.
Osborne had left by the point officers arrived however handed himself in later that day.
The court docket heard he had been ‘coercive, controlling and abusive’ in his relationship with Miss Higton.
Over the earlier two years he had been controlling her entry to social media, who she texted and the chums and colleagues she noticed.
He was repeatedly violent in direction of her – and the ‘final straw’ got here lower than three weeks earlier than the murders when Osborne punched, kicked and beat Miss Higton of their home following a petty argument.
She took a number of days to get well from her accidents after which left him, the court docket heard.
The trial was additionally advised there was proof Osborne had intercourse with Miss Higton both when she was dying or together with her physique after loss of life.
The lifeless girl’s father Robert Higton described his daughter as a ‘sort and compassionate soul’ in a sufferer influence assertion learn to the court docket, saying: ‘She was the apple of my eye.’
A sufferer private assertion by Ms Higton’s mom Nicola McAlister, learn in court docket, stated Osborne was ‘a monster of the worst sort’.
Ms McAlister wrote: ‘I now not stay, I merely exist in a tortuous world with out my child.
‘I’m tormented each second of each day that I draw breath.’
Osborne has beforehand pleaded responsible to 2 counts of homicide, and the false imprisonment and rape of the opposite girl in the home.
He has 12 earlier convictions for 27 offences.
They embody a seven-year jail time period in 2008 for theft, supplying Class A medicine and having an imitation firearm.
In 2011 he was jailed for 16 weeks for assaulting a girlfriend by grabbing her throat and punching her.
In 2013 he was given a 54-month jail time period for grievous bodily hurt with intent in an assault on a lady he had been in relationship with for 2 weeks. The court docket heard he punched her and kicked her within the head.
Mrs Justice Lambert at this time adjourned sentencing Osborne till tomorrow morning.
