First picture of eight-inch kitchen knife used by teen sweethearts to butcher dinner lady and daughter, 13
THIS is the eight-inch knife used by the teenage 'Twilight killers' to slash the throats of a dinner lady and her daughter as they slept.
Elizabeth Edwards, 49, and her youngest daughter Katie were found dead after the boy and girl - both 14 at the time - stabbed them ten times in their beds.
The court heard that the pair ate tea cakes 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.
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 judgements.
It took a jury of seven men and five women 2 hours and 30 minutes to find her guilty of both charges by unanimous verdict.
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."
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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'."
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] Shear 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 judgement" 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 judgement 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".
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 Ms Edwards.
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, both 15, were accused of hatching the plot to kill from a McDonalds three days before the attack.
The twisted teen killers had a 'Bonnie and Clyde' relationship
Consultant forensic psychiatrist Philip Joseph said the 15-year-olds would not have killed without each other and insisted their crimes had no connection to any mental illness.
Dr Joseph told Nottingham Crown Court that, when he interviewed the "inappropriately upbeat" female defendant over two-and-a-half hours in September 2016, she did not look upset at any stage or show remorse.
Describing the girl's adjustment disorder as a "minor" condition he told the jury the killings were, fundamentally, all about the relationship between the killers.
Comparing the teenagers to American crime duo Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, Dr Joseph told the court: "If they hadn't got together and had the intense, toxic relationship, they (the killings) would never have happened.
"This is clearly a planned, controlled killing - there is control all the way through it.
"Bonnie and Clyde ... that sort of intense attraction, emotional closeness - them against the world. It's that sort of thing that led on to this."
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."
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 Ms Edwards, 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 chords 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 15-year-old 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*** you, world. I want to be cremated and want our ashes scattered at our special place".
Speaking outside court today, Detective Chief Inspector Martin Holvey, of East Midlands Major Crime Unit, said: "This tragedy was distressing for all families involved, for Katie's school friends, for Elizabeth's colleagues, friends and children at the school where she worked, as well as having a shocking impact on the wider community of Spalding.
"Today the court has found a 15-year-old guilty of both murders. A teenage boy has also pleaded guilty.
"What makes this case even more shocking is that these two were 14 years of age when they planned and committed these callous, senseless and unprovoked attacks on Elizabeth and Katie.
"This case has left a number of lives in ruins, not only Elizabeth and Katie's family, but also the two juveniles who committed these horrendous crimes."
Chilling timeline of events
Monday April 11: During a conversation in the back garden of a property in Spalding, the teenage couple map out a plan to stab the victims and then share a bath to clean off "inevitable" blood. They also plan to take their own lives after the killings.
Wednesday April 13: At about midnight Elizabeth and Katie Edwards are attacked by the male defendant in their beds. The older victim is stabbed and smothered first in a killing said by his girlfriend to have lasted for around 10 minutes. Schoolgirl Katie is then killed in her own room by the boy, moments after he asked his girlfriend if she wanted to go through with the plan.
Friday April 15: Police force entry to 5 Dawson Avenue and find the victims dead in their beds. Both defendants, then aged 14, are later arrested on suspicion of murder.
Saturday April 16: The 14-year-old girl makes full admissions to police, giving them a step-by-step account of the murders and their planning. The girl tells two detectives the plan was fully agreed between her and her boyfriend: "We made sure we were both definitely OK with it and he continuously asked me if I still wanted to go through with it and I said 'yes'. We went over the plan over and over again."
Sunday April 17: Both teenagers are charged with two counts of murder.
Tuesday September 6: The defendants both admit manslaughter but plead not guilty to murder.
Monday October 10: The boy, now aged 15, admits murder at Nottingham Crown Court and is remanded in custody awaiting sentence at the end of his former girlfriend's trial.
Prosecutor Peter Joyce QC then tells the court that the girl accepts that although the boy stabbed the victims, she is equally responsible for the murders, having planned them and helped to carry them out.
Mr Joyce tells jurors the only issue in the case is whether the girl has a defence of diminished responsibility.
Wednesday October 18: The girl, also now aged 15, is found guilty of murder after jurors reject evidence that she was mentally ill at the time of the killings.
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