Woman stabbed boyfriend in the heart saying she 'found him like that'
Woman who stabbed her boyfriend in the heart with a knife then lied to police she ‘found him like that’ following bust-up shows no emotion as she’s convicted of murder
- Natalie Bennett, 47, plunged a knife into the heart of Kasey Anderson, 24
A woman who stabbed her boyfriend in the heart with a knife then lied to police that she ‘found him like that’ following a bust-up showed no emotion as she was convicted of murder.
Natalie Bennett, 47, plunged a knife into the heart of her partner Kasey Anderson, 24, before attempting to stab him in the head, a trial at Liverpool Crown Court heard today.
Mr Anderson died a week before his 25th birthday in March this year after being slashed several times with a knife and suffering two stab wounds.
He lay gravely injured in the neighbour’s driveway pleading for help, telling a 999 call handler that ‘he was dying’. Bennett then claimed to police that he had arrived at her home on Carr Lane East in Croxteth ‘like that’.
Bennett has claimed she was acting in self-defence after he attacked her and she was ‘scared’ of what he was going to do.
Natalie Bennett was today convicted of murder at Liverpool Crown Court after stabbing her boyfriend in the heart with a knife
Bennett, 47, killed her partner Kasey Anderson, 24, and attempted to stab him in the head
The verdict was reached this afternoon after around five hours and 42 minutes of deliberations, the Liverpool Echo reported.
Richard Pratt KC told the jury of four men and eight women during the prosecution’s opening last week that Bennett’s next door neighbours ‘heard raised voices’ coming from the address at around 5.30pm on Saturday, March 11, before finding Mr Anderson ‘banging and kicking at their door’ roughly 45 minutes later.
The 24-year-old was apparently ‘seeking help’, although the occupants were described as being ‘frightened by the disturbance’ and instead called the police.
He too dialled 999 while sitting seriously injured on their doorstep to report that he had been stabbed. Mr Anderson ‘repeatedly told the operator that he was dying’ but added that he ‘did not know who had stabbed him or where they were’.
Many of his answers were said to have been ‘incoherent’, with the casualty left vomiting such were the severity of his wounds. The call handler could hear Bennett’s voice in the background though and asked to speak to her instead, at which point she ‘effectively took over the call’.
She told the operator that Mr Anderson had ‘stab wounds all over him’ which she believed were ‘a bit deep’. But the defendant claimed that she did not know who had stabbed him, saying: ‘He’s come in like that.’
He was later found to have suffered superficial slash wounds to his neck, right shoulder, lower back and left forearm, as well as a ‘shallow’ stab wound to his right lower leg. But Mr Anderson had also sustained a ‘deep stab wound’ to his chest, which damaged his left lung and heart.
After being rushed to Aintree Hospital, he underwent ‘what was hoped to be life-saving surgery’ but died 20 days later in the early hours of March 31 – just over a week shy of what would have been his 25th birthday on April 8.
Bennett has claimed she was acting in self-defence after he attacked her and she was ‘scared’ of what he was going to do
Mr Pratt said: ‘The medical evidence suggests that this was not just one blow with a knife, but one of several wounds.
‘The slash wounds may have been superficial in nature and the stab to the leg may be of a shallow depth, but together they demonstrate a concerted attack which provides the background for the fatal wound to the chest.
‘It is our case that Natalie Bennett lied to the operator because she knew full well what she had done and had no excuse for it.’
Mr Pratt said that Ring doorbell footage recovered from the neighbour’s house showed Bennett ‘holding a knife to the head of the distraught and injured Mr Anderson’ with her right hand and ‘using it either to strike Kasey Anderson in the head or at the very least hold it close to his head’.
He added: ‘Thus, we suggest, she continued to demonstrate hostility towards him even after she must have known she had stabbed him in the chest.’
When officers arrived, she again alleged that he had arrived at her home ‘like that’ and claimed that the first time she had seen him that evening was when she heard him banging on her next door neighbour’s home. Bennett would subsequently give no comment to detectives under interview.
Crime scene investigators later discovered a clump of her hair on the floor of the house, which appeared to have been ‘forcibly removed’ from her head.
A ‘number of sharp implements’ were meanwhile found in the kitchen sink, ‘having apparently been soaked in water at least’ and with no blood found upon them while the address was said to have ‘smelled strongly of cleaning fluids’.
Police at the scene of the stabbing on Carr Lane East in Croxteth, Liverpool in March this year
Bennett claimed during her trial that she had stabbed Mr Anderson in self-defence once after he had attacked her. She told the jury from the stand: ‘He’s kicked me and I’ve flew into there, into the kitchen, and I’ve peed myself.’
The court was told that she was left ‘on the floor, by the sink’ before she ‘grabbed the knife off the side’. Bennett described how she ‘struck out’ with the weapon ‘because she was scared, scared of Kasey’ and ‘what he was going to do’.
She stated that she had aimed a blow with the blade ‘just once’, after which Mr Anderson was ‘just shouting his mouth off’ and they ‘ended up outside for some reason’. Her defence counsel Stanley Reiz KC asked: ‘What were you intending to do?’
Bennett replied: ‘Not hurt him like that anyway, no chance. Not to do that.
‘I loved him. I still do. I was scared. I wouldn’t hurt him, no chance.
‘I still love him. Not one day goes past where I’m not hurting inside thinking of him.’
Bennett showed no emotion as she was found guilty, while members of Mr Anderson’s family were in tears at the verdict. She will be sentenced on November 10.
Judge Watson told her: ‘You’ve been convicted of murder, for which there can only be one sentence. Imprisonment for life.
‘It is possible there may be some medical information that may touch on the minimum term I must assess before you can be considered for release. This is a sentence where there can be that only sentence of life imprisonment.’
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