Britain's youngest double murderers named as Kim Edwards and Lucas Markham after court ruling

Fresh-faced: A handout photo issued by Linconshire Police of Lucas Markham and Kim Edwards, believed to be Britain's youngest double murderers
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Eleanor Rose9 June 2017

These are the custody pictures of a fresh-faced couple believed to be Britain's youngest double murderers.

Baby-faced killers Lucas Markham and Kim Edwards, both 15, were convicted of murdering Miss Edwards' mother and sister in Spalding, Lincolnshire, last April.

They have been named and pictured for the first time following a High Court ruling.

Horrific details of the double murder could not be reported during Miss Edwards' trial after a judge ruled she was "emotionally and physically vulnerable" and should not be identified.

But after the reporting ban was lifted by Sir Brian Leveson, Mr Justice Blake and Mr Justice Lewis, it can be revealed that Miss Edwards roped in boyfriend Mr Markham to carry out the "brutal executions" of dinner lady Elizabeth Edwards, 49, and her daughter Katie as they slept at their home.

Mr Markham and his girlfriend plotted together to kill her mother and sister, mapping out a detailed plan to stab them through the voice-box to stifle their screams.

Tragic: Elizabeth Edwards, 49, and her 13-year-old daughter Katie (pictured) were the victims
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Although the original plan was for the teenage boy to kill Elizabeth Edwards while Miss Edwards would stab Katie, Mr Markham offered to kill both victims after his girlfriend said she did not want to kill her sister.

Mr Markham then smothered and stabbed both victims through the neck, said prosecutors.

The couple, likened to Bonnie and Clyde during their trial, had sex, shared a bath and watched four Twilight vampire films as they "revelled" after the killings.

After a trial at Nottingham Crown Court in 2016 both defendants were given life sentences for the killings, which were planned in a McDonald's.

Teenage killer Miss Edwards was found by police lying under a duvet in front of the TV with Mr Markham as the bodies of her mother and younger sister lay upstairs.

In the weeks after her arrest the then 14-year-old showed no trace of remorse for her crimes - and later told a psychiatrist she was "a bit sad" about her sibling's fate but "glad" her mother was dead.

On the fifth day of her trial - which would have been her sister's 14th birthday - Miss Edwards appeared unmoved in the dock as her "grief" was likened by the Crown's lawyer to that usually felt by a child at the death of a pet hamster.

Tributes at the house in Dawson Avenue in Spalding 
Matthew Cooper/PA Wire

Peter Joyce QC told jurors that Edwards had been "the driver" behind the killings and could have simply accepted Mr Markham's repeated offers to back out of a pre-agreed plan for the crimes.

Miss Edwards, a "bright kid" who spent part of her childhood in care after her mother reported herself to social services, did not give evidence in her defence but told detectives she felt depressed and suicidal prior to the murders.

Although jurors heard that Miss Edwards had attempted suicide around a month before the killings, they rejected a claim that she was suffering from a mental disorder which impaired her ability to form rational judgments.

Before being sent out to consider their verdicts, jurors were urged by Mr Joyce to be as "cold and dispassionate" about their deliberations as Miss Edwards had been to ending her mother and sister's lives.

Mr Joyce told the jury: "You know in fact who the driver was between these two. She only had to say no and it would never, ever have happened.

"It is really quite clear her hatred for her mother drove this ever onwards."

Pointing out that Miss Edwards had touched her mother's hand by accident as she reached out for her boyfriend during Mrs Edwards' murder, Mr Joyce questioned why she had insisted on going through with Katie's murder.

Mr Joyce told the court: "After she had heard the gurgling, even after she had heard her mother struggling, even after she had been in there and seen her mother dying, and mistakenly touched her mother's hand ... did she really have to have Katie killed?

"She couldn't bring herself to do it, so who got Lucas to do it? She did.

"The sheer brutality and utter contempt for her mother and her sister oozes from every pore of that girl in [police] interviews and now she says to the psychiatrist 'I am glad my mother's dead'."

In shocking evidence on the fourth day of Miss Edwards' trial, consultant forensic psychiatrist Philip Joseph revealed that the teenager did not appear upset at any stage during a two-and-a-half-hour meeting in September to assess her mental state.

She told Dr Joseph: "I don't miss my mum and I am glad she's dead even though I am now in a sticky situation.

"She deserved it. I am glad she's dead. We felt laid back about what we had done and neither of us felt that bad about it."

The court was told that Miss Edwards went into foster care in 2008 after an incident in which she was struck by her mother while living at a caravan site.

Local authority records made public at Miss Edwards' trial showed she had "long-standing" differences with her mother and sister from around the age of six.

In a handwritten note prepared after she was given targeted youth support in 2012, she said: "I feel like I don't belong to the family any more."

By early last year, Miss Edwards' emotional turmoil led her to write a letter to a teacher in which she spoke of suicide, adding: "I have tried to remain strong but I can't fight any more. Now I feel that death is the only way."

After her arrest for murder, detectives found evidence of her apparent intention to take her own life after the killings.

A note written by Miss Edwards in a pink diary found at her home read: "F*** you world. I want to be cremated and I want mine and Lucas's ashes scattered at our special place. We don't give a f*** any more."

Additional reporting by Press Association

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