A man who carried out a random unprovoked attack on a Blackburn woman has been sentenced to life in prison for her murder.
Anthony Stinson, 31, had rapped about killing someone an hour before stabbing Charlotte Wilcock to death just after 9pm on 3 March as she sat on the doorstep of her terrace house with her child sleeping upstairs.
The killer was handed a minimum sentence of 24 years and two months after pleading guilty to inflicting as many as 100 injuries, which included 11 defence knife wounds to Wilcock’s hands, as well as injuries consistent with punching, kicking and biting.
The attack was described by Judge Robert Altham as “a sustained attack with considerable suffering”. Afterwards, Stinson left the scene, picking up Wilcock’s phone and leaving his own behind in error.
Wilcock’s phone tracked his movements as he walked around the area, showing he had returned to his home nearby, where he changed his clothing before setting out again. He turned off her phone at 10.34pm.
During the evening he returned to her address and buried her phone in her garden. He returned to the street one more time shortly after midnight.
The following morning, police found the body of Wilcock, 31, behind the door to her house.
Stinson told police he had psychosis and had seen the devil when he carried out the attack, which was described as a “total fabrication” by the Crown Prosecution Service. Medical evidence did not back up this concocted story and when detectives searched his phone, they found that he and a friend had made a rap video that described killing someone just an hour before the unprovoked attack.
CCTV footage also showed that just 15 minutes earlier, he had made conversation with a local shopkeeper while buying alcohol and cigarettes.
In a victim impact statement, Wilcock’s mother, Carol, said: “Never in my worst dream would I imagine Charlotte had been murdered on her own doorstep. In that moment my whole world fell apart. This caused complete destruction to Charlotte and all those around her.
“The effects of her murder spread further and wider than you could imagine and left a hole in our world. It’s hard to believe I will never see Charlotte again. All I have is photos and memories, without the possibility of any new ones.”
Katie Lord, senior crown prosecutor for CPS North West, said: “Charlotte Wilcock should have been safe sitting on the doorstep of her own home – but instead she was brutally murdered while her young child slept upstairs.
“Anthony Stinson went out that night armed with a knife and intent on causing serious harm to someone. His appalling actions resulted in a young woman being robbed of her life and her children left without a mother.”
