The family of a young woman murdered by a controlling and violent 'monster' have told of their heartbreak. Elinor O'Brien, 22, from Salford, was stabbed to death by her 45-year-old boyfriend Kevin Mannion after a row at his Manchester city centre apartment.
They argued after Elinor questioned Mannion, who had told her that a woman he'd also been seeing had revealed she was pregnant. Mannion stabbed her to the groin at the Great Northern Tower off Peter Street, and Elinor died three days later. He called 999 and paramedics rushed to the scene.
But within half an hour of calling the emergency services, Mannion called his solicitor and asked him to be 'available'. Two days before the fatal knifing, Mannion had stabbed Elinor to the breast.
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Mannion, of Watson Street, Manchester, faces a life sentence after being found guilty of murder, wounding with intent and controlling or coercive behaviour. He will be sentenced at Liverpool Crown Court next week. Elinor’s cousin, 23-year-old Mollie Lune, described Mannion as a 'monster' and urged victims of domestic abuse to come forward to police.
“Elinor was a really fun person, she was very open and kind," Mollie said. "It is horrendous to think that this thug controlled her and bullied her to the point where she felt she could not walk away from him safely.
“She kept the whole ordeal a secret, which was not like her. We don’t want her murder to become another statistic.
"In her name, I want to plead with women to walk away from abuse. Please make that first step, before it is too late.
“Elinor was absolutely beautiful, stunning, she had her whole life ahead of her, and it was cruelly snatched away. Her funeral was absolutely packed with her friends and family, all distraught.
"We threw vapes onto her coffin, along with the roses. She would have smiled at that. We all miss her so much. All we can hope for now is to save another life, in her name."
Mollie, from Birmingham, said she and Elinor were born four weeks apart and were very close as children. "My mum and her dad are sister and brother," she explained.
“We’d always play together, and we had similar characters; neither of us took life too seriously. We were tomboys, playing outside and getting into scrapes.
“As we got older, we both got jobs, Elinor worked in an office and I was in sales. But we stayed in close touch on social media.
"I cut my own hair and she laughed at me. Over Christmas, we both had raging hangovers and sent each other funny pictures on Boxing Day.
“She lived in Manchester, and I lived in Birmingham so we were a long way apart but the bond was always there. She was a gym lover but she liked her chocolate too; she’d send me photos of her trying different chocolate cakes.”
Last summer, Elinor changed her number and the two women lost contact for a month. Mollie began to worry. She said: "I couldn’t get hold of Elinor which wasn’t like her at all."
The trial heard that Elinor had spoken to police about suffering from domestic abuse, but was too frightened to name Mannion as the perpetrator. Mollie added: "Now, I know that she was being controlled and abused by that monster. She must have been too scared to speak out, and that breaks my heart."
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