- Tony Bushby, 19, created fake Facebook friends to trick an art student into going out with him
- He stabbed her more than 20 times as she babysat her niece and nephew then locked them in the house with her body
- Murderer faces life in jail after jury convicts him
By
Anna Edwards
10:25 EST, 24 July 2012
|
13:16 EST, 24 July 2012
A teenager who tricked a naive Christian into going out with him then stabbed her to death as she babysat her niece and nephew on Boxing Day faces life in jail.
Tony Bushby, 19, stabbed promising student Catherine Wynter more than 20 times then left her body alone with the youngsters, who stayed locked in the house with the corpse overnight.
Bushby, who was obsessed by ‘all things dark and evil’, had tricked her into a relationship by creating a circle of fictitious Facebook friends, whom he used to talk himself up and persuade her to go out with him.
Tricked: Promising student Catherine Wynter was murdered whilst babysitting in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire
The jury heard in an earlier hearing that Miss Wynter, 19, agreed to babysit for her sister Sabrina while she spent Boxing Day night with her boyfriend and his parents.
Her mother Joy Davies went to check on her just after 8am on December 27 last year and saw blood on the front door.
The children, three and four, came up to her at the door and said ‘Grandma, Katie’s dead’.
Catherine’s mother Joy Davis then followed a trail of blood and found her daughter lying dead on the the kitchen floor at her sister’s home in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, in a pool of her own blood.
The naive churchgoer, known as Katie, had been stabbed 23 times by karate expert Bushby to her neck and stomach including 13 fatal blows, St Albans Crown Court heard.
Guilty: Tony Bushby, a teenage karate teacher, was convicted of stabbing his girlfriend to death on Boxing Day as she babysat her niece and nephew
‘Obsessed’: Tony Bushby created a circle of friends to persuade the naive Christian to go out with him, before mercilessly stabbing her
Before she had started babysitting that evening her sister had advised her to ‘lock the door and not let anybody in’.
Covered
in her blood Bushby went to his nearby family home and destroyed his
mobile to ‘cover up’ what had happened and destroy any evidence.
Murdered: Katy’s mother Joy found her daughter slumped on the floor
Police went to visit him after they examined Katie’s laptop and phone and worked out he was probably her boyfriend.
They then studied his computer and
found out he had set up a fictitious circle of friends on Facebook – all
of whom he had used to communicate with Katie, tricking her they were
real.
The profile pages of Dan Tress, Cyn Darwin, Shane Pleuon and Krystal Stanguard featured photographs Bushby had found on the internet.
In fact they were all him and reflected his ‘obesessions and interests’ in ‘all things dark and evil’.
He even went on to blame one of his creations, Dan Tress, for Katie’s murder.
Another, called Krystal Stanguard, claimed she was interested in ‘all things dark and evil’ and a third had the email address ‘lokigodtrickster@hotmail.co.uk’ – named after the Norse god of chaos and mischief.
Mr Speak said: ‘He systematically tricked Katie over a period of time into believing that she was in contact on Facebook not only with the defendant but also with a small circle of his close friends.
‘In fact this small circle of friends were entirely fictitious, they were people the defendant had made up, they did not exist.
‘Believing them to be real Katie would talk to them on Facebook. All the time that girl was caught up in a web of malicious deception which was created and controlled by this defendant for purposes of his own.’
Bushby used the character to say things to her to gain her trust or the say flattering or impressive things about himself.
Mr Speak said: ‘He used them in effect to try and get her to like him.’
Bushby had denied murder but was convicted by the jury.
He will be sentenced tomorrow.
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