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An obsessive ex-boyfriend “executed” a mother of four and her new partner just four days after she reported him to the police.
Marcus Osborne, 35, of Harpe Inge, Dalton, West Yorkshire has been sentenced to a whole life order at Leeds Crown Court for the murder of his ex-partner Katie Higton and her new boyfriend Steven Harnett.
Ms Higton, 27, had told West Yorkshire Police that she feared Osborne would seriously harm or kill her, after he made repeated threats that he would murder her if she got another boyfriend.
Days later, he brutally stabbed her and Mr Harnett at her home in Huddersfield on 15 May 2023, with both pronounced dead at the scene.
Osborne said: “Romeo and Juliet can f***ing die together now” after the brutal double killing which left Ms Higton with 99 injuries and Mr Harnett with 24 wounds including mutilated genitals.
A family member shouted “I hope you rot in hell” from the public gallery as Osborne was taken away.
(PA Media)
The judge said the killings were “sexual in nature” and driven by Osborne’s “pathological jealousy”.
“I do not accept (the murders) are explained by your entrenched insecurity about being abandoned as a result of a neglected childhood.
“Everything you did was motivated by sex and your need to sexually humiliate and degrade.”
A victim personal statement by Ms Higton’s mother Nicola McAlister, read in court, said Osborne was “a monster of the worst kind”.
The judge, Mrs Justice Lambert, imposed 10-year concurrent sentences for the rape and false imprisonment of the other woman in the house.
She told Osborne: “There are no mitigating factors in your case other than your guilty plea. There is no psychiatric or other evidence placed before me to explain or help me understand your actions.
“This is a case of such exceptional seriousness that even a very long minimum term would not be a just punishment. What you did that night was horrific.”
Osborne had pleaded guilty to two counts of murder and other offences.
At the time the murder was reported, professionals were holding an urgent meeting to discuss ways to protect Ms Higton and her four children.
On the day she went to make a formal statement to West Yorkshire Police at her local station in Huddersfield, she told officers that she had spoken to Osborne the previous day and he refused to accept they had broken up for good, the BBC reported.
According to the chronology, she told police Osborne had hurt her and said he would “slit mine and the children’s throats” if she told anyone “what he was like”.
Following her death, Ms Higton’s family and friends paid tribute to her as “the best mum” and said the family was “absolutely devastated” as they placed flowers on behalf of her two eldest children at the scene.
Her former brother-in-law, who asked not to be named, said his brother had been in a relationship with mother-of-four Ms Higton for seven years and was the father of her two eldest children, daughters aged nine and 10.
He said the children “were in the property when the incident took place”.
He described Ms Higton as “bubbly, outgoing, fun” and “a great mum”.
More follows on this breaking news story…