An Afghanistan veteran who stabbed his neighbours to death while their young children slept upstairs following a long-running dispute over parking has been jailed for at least 38 years. Collin Reeves knifed Stephen and Jennifer Chapple six times each at their house in Dragon Rise, Norton Fitzwarren, near Taunton in Somerset, on the evening of November 21 last year.
Reeves, also of Dragon Rise, had been involved in a row with the couple over designated parking on the new-build housing development since the previous May. The 35-year-old former Royal Engineer used the ceremonial dagger given to him when he left the Army to kill the couple.
Reeves himself called the police just a few minutes after the killings to confess to what he had done, but later denied murder, claiming he was only guilty of manslaughter on diminished responsibility. But two forensic psychiatrists found he was not suffering from psychosis or acute post-traumatic stress disorder, and diagnosed him with only mild to moderate depression.
