'Woman killed half-sister with casserole dish'

File picture: garycycles8/Flickr

File picture: garycycles8/Flickr

Published Nov 22, 2016

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London - A woman disguised herself as a man before going to her half-sister’s home and murdering her with a casserole dish, a court heard on Monday.

Yvonne Caylor, 53, allegedly wore a wig and fake beard when she turned up at Nicola Collingbourne’s flat and forced her way in before battering her with the chicken-shaped dish.

The 26-year-old’s body was found when concerned members of her family went to check on her after she failed to answer calls. They found her lying in a pool of blood in her underwear with the smashed ceramic dish nearby.

The jury has been told the women had fallen out and Caylor decided to kill her half-sister on the day Caylor learned she was facing trial for breaking into Collingbourne’s home and stealing items.

Prosecutor John Price QC said: ‘That she was murdered that day was no coincidence.’

CCTV showed a person wearing a fake beard, wig and heavy-rimmed spectacles, as well as a high-visibility jacket, entering the block of flats in Letchworth, Hertfordshire, at 8.30am on May 23. The person went to Collingbourne’s apartment on the first floor. The murder victim opened her door before quickly trying to close it, although she was unable to stop the visitor pushing their way in.

Footage taken four hours later showed the intruder leaving with a plastic bag believed to contain shards from the casserole dish.

Price said the victim was obviously unlawfully killed but the jury had to decide by whom, explaining: ‘To use a slang phrase, this case is a whodunit.’

He added: ‘The images of this person show very obviously that the hair and beard are fake and, if that’s true, then this person is not obviously a man.

‘And if the hair and beard are fake so might be the spectacles, in the sense that the person doesn’t need them.’

Luton Crown Court heard the women - who shared the same father - had an ‘acrimonious’ relationship which worsened when they lived together in the US briefly.

Collingbourne returned to the UK in August 2012 but allowed Caylor, a welder, to stay with her from August 2015 after the older woman also came back to her home country.

Caylor was evicted weeks later and claimed she was assaulted by Collingbourne, although police decided to take no action.

Caylor was then arrested on suspicion of burglary after she was accused of getting a locksmith to let her into the first floor apartment and stealing items. She was also charged with perverting the course of justice after allegedly trying to persuade her half-sister to drop the complaint.

Woman 'killed her half-sister with a chicken-shaped casserole dish'

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The two-piece ceramic dish used to strike Collingbourne left a long laceration at the back of her head. Her wrists also had very deep cuts, which the prosecution claim were inflicted shortly before her death to make it look like she had committed suicide.

She was found clutching the brush from a dustpan and brush set, which investigators believe was intended to ‘stage’ the scene in some way.

A post-mortem examination failed to establish the exact cause of death other than it was ‘unnatural and violent’. Blood was found in the hallway, bathroom and kitchen of the flat.

Collingbourne acted as full-time carer to her mother, Rena Hibbert-Jones, who had been due to go home after spending time in hospital with a respiratory illness.

When Hibbert-Jones, who has since died, was unable to contact her daughter, three family members went to the flat and found Collingbourne’s body.

Price added: ‘It was a horrible and distressing scene. It is a gallery-type kitchen. Nikki was found on her back, her feet facing the door. She was wearing only her underwear. There was a large amount of blood on the floor.

‘On the floor were a number of shattered or broken pieces of ceramic and they turned out to be, once they were put together, the shattered fragments of a ceramic kitchen pot that was in the shape of a chicken.’

The jury heard that the owner of a local fancy dress shop remembers Caylor, who denies murder, looking at wigs in April.

The case continues.

Daily Mail

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