A husband who strangled his wife to death six months after she'd given birth to their child has been jailed for his heinous crime.
Matthew Fisher, 30, murdered primary school teacher Abi Fisher, 29, in a fit of rage and dumped her body in a woodland before driving to Lancashire and back. Mrs Fisher had gone through three rounds of IVF so the couple could have their daughter Sydney, who was christened five days before the murder.
Mr Fisher then led the police and Mrs Fisher's family on a “wild goose chase”. Hundreds of people were searching for Mrs Fishers near her home in Castleford, West Yorkshire, before police found searches on her phone, including “why does my husband hate me?” and “is marriage counselling available on the NHS?” prosecutor James Lake said.
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Mr Fisher claimed she left him and their daughter in the middle of the night, Leeds Crown Court was told. He has now been jailed for 15 years.
Fisher was seen on CCTV leaving the family home at 4am on July 9 before returning at 9.30am. While he was gone, he travelled to Lancashire, Derbyshire and South Yorkshire, the court was told.
The day after being reported missing police found Mrs Fisher's body in bushes near a lay-by in Southmoor Road, near Brierley in South Yorkshire Mrs Fisher had been throttled and victim of a “serious assault” which included multiple punches or kicks to the head and face, post-mortem tests found.
Fisher went on to tell a psychiatrist he “lost it” after his wife told him she was “not happy and was going to move back in with her parents”, Mr Lake said. The defendant claimed he put his hand over his wife’s mouth to try and smother her and, when that did not work, he smothered her with a T-shirt.
However, this didn't add up to what injuries Mrs Fisher had. Fisher’s barrister James Little Hales said: “It’s clear that more happened than he acknowledged (to the psychiatrist).”
The couple met at secondary school and married in June 2016, with their daughter Sydney christened five days before the murder, the court heard. In her victim impact statement, Mrs Fisher’s mother, Andrea Richardson, said her daughter had three rounds of IVF so she “could both have the child you wanted so much”.
She said the two other embryos were put in the coffin “with their mummy," reports LancsLive. Telling Fisher, who sat with his head in his hands throughout the hearing, to “please look at me and show me some respect”, Mrs Richardson said: “We treated you like a son, Matthew, and you lied to our faces.
“You sat there knowing you had killed my baby girl, dragged her through the undergrowth and dumped her in the woods where you used to play as a child.”
Mrs Richardson and her husband Michael, who are now looking after Sydney, said they never felt anything was wrong in their daughter’s marriage and never thought Fisher would hurt her. Sentencing Fisher, who admitted murder, judge Tom Bayliss KC said: “You told cruel and calculated lies to police and (Mrs Fisher’s) family.
“You murdered your wife, the woman you loved. You left your little daughter without any parent to care for her. By your actions you have taken one life and left the lives of so many others in tatters.”
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