At least eight women were harassed by the man who went on to murder Gracie Spinks, with some reporting that they had to quit their job and move house to avoid him, an inquest has heard.
Michael Sellers, 35, is believed to have stabbed Spinks to death after he became “obsessed” with her, having met her through work.
Spinks, 23, died on 18 June 2021 from 10 stab wounds inflicted by Sellers, six months after she told him she did not want to pursue a romantic relationship with him.
He was found dead in undergrowth 150 metres away from where Spinks was discovered in a field in Duckmanton, Derbyshire, having taken his own life.
The pair worked at an e-commerce firm, Xbite, and had met a handful of times outside work for a meal, to go for walks and to visit each other’s homes.
The second day of an inquest into Spinks’s death heard that during a visit to her home when she was self-isolating in December 2020, Sellers started kissing her and got on top of her and she asked him to stop.
She later sent him a text saying he was a “great guy” but she did not want a relationship, which upset Sellers, the inquest heard.
Spinks reported Sellers to the HR department at their workplace after seeing him on 4 January 2021 parked in a layby near the field where her horse, Paddy, was stabled. He was subsequently dismissed for gross misconduct.
The inquest heard that he had allegedly got employees he was supervising to spy on Spinks’s social media.
DC Denise Sandall, of Derbyshire constabulary, told the inquest that police identified eight other women who had previously received unwanted attention from Sellers.
The first woman, who worked with Sellers at a different company, left her job because his unwanted attention made her so uncomfortable. She reported seeing Sellers parked near her home at night.
A second woman said she left her workplace after Sellers continued to message her even after asking him to stop, and she had been forced to change her address and the car she drove to avoid him.
Police were told by a colleague of Sellers that he had a “fascination” with watching a third young woman, although she was not aware of this until she was approached by officers investigating Spinks’s death.
A fourth woman said Sellers asked her out on a date 10 times before she told him to stop and she left her job. She noticed he seemed to know details about her life, friends and plans, and eventually discovered he had created a fake account to follow her on Instagram.
A fifth woman said Sellers became “hostile” and bumped his car into hers at a roundabout as he followed her while she was driving home, after she turned down his advances after they went for a drink.
Police were unable to contact a sixth woman, and a seventh said Sellers had become possessive, accusing her of speaking to other men and not him. The eighth woman was made uncomfortable by Sellers’ behaviour towards her, and Xbite reportedly spoke to him about “inappropriate” behaviour.
Sandall said police made the link between Spinks’s death and Sellers’ just over an hour after she was found at 8.13am. A note found in a bedside cabinet at Sellers’ home said he could not deal with “all her lies against me” and he was “sorry I let everyone down”.
The inquest in Chesterfield continues.
