A woman has been found guilty of fatally stabbing her film director sister in the neck before making off with her diamond-encrusted gold Rolex watch.
Nancy Pexton, 70, was convicted by an Old Bailey jury on Wednesday of the brutal murder of her film director sister, Jennifer Abbott, 69. She fatally stabbed Ms Abbott ten times, stealing a diamond-encrusted gold Rolex watch from her Camden, north London flat.
Ms Abbott, a US citizen, was last seen alive at 7.36am on 10 June last year, returning from walking her corgi, Prince. Pexton contacted her at 11.36am, then travelled to the Mornington Place flat, arriving at 12.45pm and leaving an hour later.
Ms Abbott’s body lay undiscovered for three days until 13 June, when a concerned neighbour, noticing the dog's unusual silence, forced entry with a scaffolding pole. Her niece, Mai Pexton, was seen banging on the door. Following the killing, Pexton reported an overdose to her GP and was hospitalised until her arrest on 18 June.
The partially naked and decomposing body was discovered on the living room floor, with gaffer tape over her mouth.
She had a large, gaping “slash-type” wound across her neck and gaffer tape across her mouth, jurors heard.
Ms Abbott’s corgi had been trapped in the kitchen and was freed by firefighters.
A post-mortem examination found Ms Abbott had sustained a number of stab and slash wounds and a single defensive wound to the right hand.
Her Rolex watch, a gift from her son Brad Carlson which she never took off, was missing.
It was later recovered by police from Pexton’s bag after they visited her in hospital.
When quizzed about it, Pexton said she had been given it to “look after”.
However, prosecutor Bill Boyce KC suggested Ms Abbott would never have given away her “prized Rolex watch”.
He told jurors: “The reality, of course, is that the defendant took the watch having stabbed her sister to do so.”
In the two days after Ms Abbott’s death, there were numerous missed calls from her son Mr Carlson, who lives abroad.
Mr Carlson described a “bubbling” resentment between his mother and aunt.
Giving evidence via videolink, Mr Carlson said: “There was interaction and sometimes anger and hostility between my mother and Nancy, there was resentment seemingly bubbling up.”
Jurors also heard how Ms Abbott told her nephew that she was scared for her safety as Pexton was “capable of anything”.
In November 2024, she had shared a message in which Pexton told her: “You know I was planning to kill you but it was just a thought, I would never hurt you.”
The message went on to warn Ms Abbott to “watch your back from those you conned and stole money from”.
Pexton wrote: “You never know they could get you while you walking your dog. Be careful honey, I worry about you. You so many enemy (sic).”
At the time, Ms Abbott asked her nephew if she should take out a restraining order.
Further evidence of Pexton’s resentment were found in a series of notes on her phone in which she referred to thinking about killing her “evil” sister and complained about other family members.
Pexton later told police she had just being “venting” her feelings and that she really loved her sister.
She claimed to have no memory of the 90 minutes covering the time spent in her flat.
On that day, she had been wearing a black cowboy hat and blue dungarees which were covered in her sister’s blood “from top to bottom”.
Jurors were told that Pexton had asked one of her daughters to take the clothes away and wash them or throw them away.
The defendant, who has two grown-up daughters, went on to explain that the blood got on her clothes when she hugged her sister who had suffered a nosebleed.
But Mr Boyce said scientific analysis did not support her claim and suggested Ms Abbott’s blood went everywhere when Pexton slashed and cut her 10 times.
An examination of Ms Abbott’s flat also showed evidence that someone had tried to “clean up”, he said.
Pexton, of no fixed address, had denied wrongdoing and declined to give evidence in her trial, opting to appear in court by videolink from Bronzefield jail.
Following the guilty verdict, Judge Anuja Dhir KC adjourned sentencing to Friday.
