Why women are more likely to be killed in kitchen than men

Why women are more likely to be killed in kitchen than men: A top criminologist’s psychological fascinating analysis of the reasons murderers choose to strike where they do in the home

A lone woman is walking down the street, the tap-tapping of her high heels the only sound – until she suddenly becomes aware of someone else’s footsteps. They’re behind her, rapidly picking up pace. Alarmed, she begins to run…

If this cliched scene sounds familiar, it’s because we’ve all seen it in film and TV dramas, usually as a prelude to a grisly murder.

There’s a good reason for its ubiquity. It taps into one of our deepest fears: violent assault by a stranger, just as we’re frantically trying to reach the safety of home.

Well, first let me reassure you: these types of murders are exceedingly rare. In fact, you’re far more likely to be killed in the ‘safety’ of your own home. Particularly if you’re a woman. ‘Home, sweet home’, in short, is the primary site for murder in the UK – and the figures are doggedly persistent, stretching right back in history.

Between 2017 and 2019, three-quarters of female victims and four in every ten male victims in England and Wales were murdered at home – often by someone they knew. Figures for Scotland are higher: from 2010 to 2020, it was 83 per cent of all female murder victims and 55 per cent of male victims.

Pictured: Crime scene (File photo). Between 2017 and 2019, three-quarters of female victims and four in every ten male victims in England and Wales were murdered at home – often by someone they knew

Hollie Kerrell, a talented make-up artist and mother of three, was killed in the kitchen of her home in Knucklas, Wales, in April 2018

The vast majority of the killers were male.

Home may well be where the heart is, but it can also be a cauldron for misogyny and toxic masculinity. As the poet W. H. Auden said, evil is always unspectacular because it shares our bed and eats at our table.

In my work as a criminologist, I’ve spent more than 40 years investigating serial killers, murderers, rapists and sex offenders, some of whom I’ve met face to face.

I’ve also had to visit houses, flats and lodgings where a murder has taken place. Many of these homes had cosy sitting rooms, children’s play areas, bird-feeders in the garden. If you ignored the bloodstains, they looked familiar and safe. But it was their very ordinariness that often raised the hairs on the back of my neck – a feeling akin to taking a shower immediately after watching the Hitchcock suspense thriller Psycho.

As I surveyed the macabre aftermath of a murder, my mind would be buzzing with questions – some relating to the room in which the victim was found. Why did the killer strangle his victim in the sitting room rather than the bedroom, for instance? Was there any significance to the window overlooking the back garden?

Why was she stabbed in the kitchen? The chilling truth is that the killer’s choice of room often reveals a great deal about the nature of the crime. And not just the rooms; even the front door can have a tale to tell.

The kitchen isn’t merely the room where we cook; it’s also the centre of our homes, the place where the kitchen-sink drama of our lives is played out on a daily basis.

Historically, the kitchen was viewed as a woman’s place. These days, most prefer to have careers and aspirations beyond sink and stove. Some men, however, have yet to catch up – and in those cases, the room can become a metaphorical stage for a broken or abusive relationship with their partner.

The kitchen, I need hardly remind you, is also where we keep our sharp knives. So it’s no surprise that women are more likely to be murdered there than men.

Take, for example, the case of Hollie Kerrell, a talented make-up artist and mother of three, who was killed in the kitchen of her home in Knucklas, Wales, in April 2018. Aged just 28, she was estranged at the time from her husband Christopher. During the five years they’d been married, he’d become increasingly violent and abusive – but whenever she said she was leaving him, he’d vowed to kill himself in front of the children.

Aged just 28, Hollie (pictured right) was estranged at the time from her husband Christopher (pictured left). During the five years they’d been married, he’d become increasingly violent and abusive – but whenever she said she was leaving him, he’d vowed to kill himself in front of the children

A quarry machine operator, he’d felt threatened by Hollie’s success as a businesswoman selling cosmetics online. After he decided to move out, she hoped she was finally free of his coercive control. But shortly afterwards, he exerted the ultimate control by killing her in the kitchen they once shared – first bludgeoning her with a hammer and then strangling her.

While their children played outside, he calmly finished drinking a cup of tea she’d just made for herself. This was hugely symbolic: the tea had been Hollie’s but now it was his, as well as everything else.

The kitchen had become emblematic of Kerrell’s wrecked marriage, and killing his wife allowed him to feel he’d regained the upper hand; that he’d ‘won’ and felt he was finally in charge.

Living rooms are the place where guests are entertained and they are usually decorated in a way that reflects the owner’s personal tastes, social standing and wealth. In a way, our private self is more imprinted on the living room than anywhere else in the home.

When killers break into other people’s living rooms, in many instances I’ve found they use them as a kind of stage.

This was the case when Janice Sheridan, 45, and her 79-year-old mother Connie were stabbed to death at their isolated cottage in Upwell, Norfolk, in 1999.

When police found Janice’s body several days later, surrounded by her 20 whippets, she was lying on her back on the floor, with her legs bound at the ankles with duct tape and resting on a chair. Her breasts and thighs were exposed.

Her mother had been placed on a sofa with her arms crossed over her chest. Why didn’t their killer – a door-to-door salesman who had once tried to sell the women double-glazing – drag one or both of them into a bedroom?

I reckon he enjoyed the more public atmosphere of a living room and used it as his stage. He wanted what he’d done to be viewed, perhaps even admired, by those who entered the crime scene later.

Janice Sheridan, 45, and her 79-year-old mother Connie (pictured) were stabbed to death at their isolated cottage in Upwell, Norfolk, in 1999

Murders in bedrooms tend to be more bizarre and more extreme. They also often involve sexual fantasies. Bedroom killers take advantage of the privacy of the room we consider a sanctuary, perverting it in grotesque ways.

In a bedroom, they can spend longer with a victim. They can let their fantasies flower and come to fruition – in a way that seldom happens in a kitchen or living room.

These murder cases can be particularly shocking.

There was the killing of 74-year-old widow Alice Rye, who died in a back bedroom of her home in Spital, on the Wirral, in 1996. A regular churchgoer and stalwart of the Women’s Institute, Alice was described by her friends as ‘elegant’, ‘dignified’, and ‘a woman with poise’.

Crime-scene photographs show she was found naked from the waist down, with her hands tied behind her back and a towel stuffed in her mouth. It was obvious she had been tortured and sexually assaulted before being stabbed repeatedly.

All of this was gruesome enough, but Alice’s killer had also plunged a kitchen knife into each of her eyes after she’d died.

The killer clearly wanted to shock – wanting others to view what he’d done and interpret the horrific ‘story’ he was telling.

Nearly 18 months after the murder, police worked out that the killer had conned his way into Alice’s home and marched her upstairs at knifepoint.

When they found their man, they realised that the staged crime scene was a ‘come-on-and-catch-me’ provocation from someone who thought of himself as bold, clever and daring.

74-year-old widow Alice Rye died in a back bedroom of her home in Spital, on the Wirral, in 1996

As for motive – very little of value was stolen from Alice’s house, so it seems he simply enjoyed acting out a sick sexual fantasy of torture and sadism.

Finally, let’s not ignore the back garden, where many murderers bury their victims – sometimes under the noses of their neighbours. Back gardens are private and convenient: burying a body there is a lot less risky than moving it elsewhere, and few neighbours think twice about a man digging in the borders.

But there are two other compelling reasons for garden burials.

First, some killers like the idea of staying close to their victims.

And second, the unmarked graves are a continual reminder of how clever they are to have got away with murder.

Both these motives apply to Lee Sabine, who buried her husband John in the communal gardens of their retirement home after hitting him over the head with an ornamental stone frog.

The couple had moved to their final home, in Beddau, Wales, in 1997. No neighbours seem to have paid any attention to John; they were all too busy being dazzled by former cabaret singer Lee, who was variously described as ‘theatrical’ and ‘a bit like Dame Edna Everage’. A few months after the couple’s arrival, John disappeared. If anyone asked about him, Lee claimed he’d left her, sometimes suggesting he was a wife-beater and a ‘bastard’.

The following year, she removed his name from the tenancy agreement, but continued to receive his state benefits and Army pension.

In 2005, when John would have turned 75 and been entitled to a free TV licence, Lee transferred the licence into his name. She was astute enough to get away with murder for nearly two decades – until she herself died of brain cancer in 2015. It was only then that her secret unravelled.

John Sabine’s remains were found in a garden in Trem-Y-Cwm in Beddau, PontyPridd, after he went missing 

Lee had loved gardening, and three years before her death she was interviewed by a magazine about her ‘mission’ to turn what had once been a small, neglected garden into ‘a little piece of paradise’.

As she explained: ‘The neighbours thought I was mad when I started going out and working on the garden every day – especially as mine was the only flat with no views of the garden. I knew I could do something beautiful.

‘The hard work paid off and my neighbours now love the garden. Because of the seating I designed, we can sit outside together and catch up. Every summer I host a barbecue and all the neighbours come. It is a ball.’

The garden, of course, was a convenient place to dispose of her husband’s body. But it was more than that; it meant Lee was still physically close and connected to her husband. Even when she hosted an annual barbecue, John was there, too – an idea that may have somewhat assuaged her guilt.

So why did she kill him?

A former neighbour remembered asking about John just after they’d moved to the retirement home.

‘I’ve killed him,’ replied Lee. She then described how she’d ‘battered’ him with the stone frog. ‘He was just driving me mad. Every night he would get into bed crying and weeping and saying, “You don’t fancy me.” ’

Transgender murder victim Naomi Hersi, 36, was stabbed to death in a hotel near Heathrow Airport in March 2018

The neighbour thought Lee was joking. So did a hairdresser to whom Lee confided: ‘People will talk about me long after I’ve gone to the extent I could be classed as famous.’ When asked why, Lee replied: ‘Because of the body in the bag.’

She knew she could admit the truth without being believed – because everyone thought she was ‘mad as a box of frogs’. Her final confession was framed as a joke. When she realised she had a terminal illness, she told a friend that there was a medical skeleton buried in the garden. Her friend should dig it up after her death, she chortled, and hide it in the attic to scare the next tenants of the flat.

And that’s exactly what the friend did – not to scare neighbours but to play a prank on another friend.

But when she started digging, she soon found the body of Lee Sabine’s husband – still wearing his M&S pyjamas.

Even the privacy offered by a bathroom did not afford protection for transgender murder victim Naomi Hersi. The 36-year-old was stabbed to death in a hotel near Heathrow Airport in March 2018.

Her half-naked body was found partially covered by a rug on the floor of the hotel room’s bathroom.

University drop-out Jesse McDonald, then 25, who had spent the previous three days on a drugs binge with Hersi after contacting her on a swingers’ website, was convicted of her murder in November 2018.

A conservatory would offer a murderer no shield from potential witnesses’ eyes, so may seem an unlikely room for a killer to strike.

But this didn’t stop a teenage gang killing 16-year-old Sarmad Rami Al-Saidi in a conservatory in a house in Deepdale, Preston, in December 2020. In fact, the visibility of the victim in the adjunct may have helped one of the gang, Asad Hussain, ascertain that Al-Saidi wasn’t armed when he arrived at the house. Jamie Dixon and Lemar Anthony Forbes were then summoned and stabbed Al-Saidi to death with a machete and a hunting knife.

A teenage gang killed 16-year-old Sarmad Rami Al-Saidi in a conservatory in a house in Deepdale, Preston, in December 2020

What, then, are we to conclude from this rather gruesome tour of the home? My most important message is that murder is relatively rare, even when a home is not sweet but troubled and problematic. The vast majority of men and women will never become killers.

However, this doesn’t change the fact that we’re more likely to be murdered in the place where we feel safer than anywhere else. And if the worst happens? Experience allows detectives and psychological profilers to build up a picture of the killer – simply from where the victim was attacked or buried.

© David Wilson 2023

lAdapted from Murder At Home: How Our Safest Space Is Where We’re Most In Danger, by David Wilson, published by Sphere at £22. To order a copy for £19.80, visit mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937 before April 30. UK p&p free on orders over £20.

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