A man battered his wife to death with a lamp after racking up huge debts.
Mark Wheeler kept his money troubles secret from his partner Karen, then brutally murdered her and tried to kill himself at their flat in Birkenhead when threatened with bailiffs. The "much-loved mother" was also repeatedly stabbed during a prolonged assault, which began as she slept on a sofa and saw her subjected to dozens of blows at his hands.
Liverpool Crown Court heard this afternoon, Friday, that the couple began their relationship in 2007 before marrying seven years later. They lived in a 13th-storey unit in an apartment block on Vittoria Close and there had been "no history of domestic violence" - although Ms Wheeler reported that her husband "had begun to act in an insecure and needy way" in the months before her death.
