Warning: This article contains details some readers may find distressing
An “evil” postman who moaned about being lonely hours before he severed his girlfriend’s head and tried to dismember her body has been jailed for a minimum of 23 years.
Ewan Methven murdered Phoenix Spencer-Horn, 21, in the flat they shared in East Kilbride, near Glasgow, last November.
The High Court in Glasgow heard the killer dumped his partner’s body parts in their hallway and failed to call emergency services for two days.
The 27-year-old then bought drugs, watched pornography and sent sickening texts to Phoenix’s worried mum pretending she was still alive.
Victim described killer as ‘soulmate’
Phoenix was stabbed 20 times using three knives in an attack that unfolded after she returned from her waitressing job in Lanarkshire.
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The 21-year-old described Methven as her “soul mate” on social media, saying in one TikTok video: “Life is so much more beautiful and full of colour with you.”
A few months later she was murdered by the same man she had been in a relationship with for two years.
‘There was a bad smell where the walls join’
Sky News has interviewed the couple’s neighbour who lives directly next door.
Toni Brown, 25, described the horror of discovering what happened.
She said: “I think I stayed out of the house for about a week after that. I couldn’t even sit. It was horrific.
“It’s horrific. It gives me shivers thinking about it. It is crazy to think I stayed next door to a monster like that.
“What scares me the most is knowing she was lay there and I was in here oblivious.”
Asked whether she heard any noises or violence around the time of the murder, Ms Brown said: “There was a bad smell in my house in the early hours of the morning she was found.
“There was a bad smell in my kitchen basically where the walls join together.
Methven’s own defence lawyer told the court society will see him as the “personification of evil”.
When he eventually called 999, he claimed to have suffered a drug-induced blackout during the violent killing.
Another life lost to gender-based violence
It has raised questions once again about the growing prevalence of gender-based violence.
Fiona Drouet’s daughter Emily was 18 years old when she took her own life at university in Aberdeen in 2016, days after being choked and slapped by her ex-boyfriend.
Angus Milligan was later convicted of physical and psychological abuse.
Fiona, who now campaigns on violence against women across the UK and Ireland, has set up a charity called Emily’s Test in her daughter’s name.
Reacting to the death of Phoenix Spencer-Horn, Ms Drouet told Sky News: “There is another mother and father that have just been plunged into utter hell.
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“Somebody once said to me that if god came to you and said, ‘I am going to give you this beautiful daughter, but you’ll only have her for 18 years and then we need to take her back, would you still want her?’ and I would take those 18 years and go through the pain rather than have nothing.
“Although just now that probably offers no words of comfort for Phoenix’s parents, maybe one day it can.”
If you suspect you are being abused and need to speak to someone, there are people who can help you, including The National Domestic Violence Helpline on 0808 2000 247 or Women’s Aid online.
