Wife who murdered husband and buried his dismembered body in garden jailed for 22 years
9 April 2025, 14:58 | Updated: 9 April 2025, 15:18
A woman who dismembered her husband after murdering him in a “ferocious attack” has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 22 years.
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Maureen Rickards, 50, stabbed her husband, Jeremy, 65, to death before taking his bank card, disposing of the murder weapon and attempting to pin the blame for his death on others, Canterbury Crown Court heard on Wednesday.
Her husband faced a campaign of controlling and abusive behaviour before being stabbed five times, including through his heart, in an attack that clearly intended to kill, jurors were told.
After killing and dismembering him, Maureen hid her husband's body in a cupboard before moving it to the garden.
His remains were discovered at their Canterbury address by police on July 11 last year, six days after he was reported missing by his stepdaughter.
Police were met with an “overpowering odour” that “made them feel ill” when they attended the house while investigating Maureen over bank card fraud.
Insights into their turbulent 27-year marriage became clear in video clips taken by Maureen, which showed her abusing, beating and mocking her husband.
The killer did not attend her final sentencing but in his comments directed towards her Mr Justice Kerr said: “You filmed various incidents. Your videos also clearly show you threatening Jeremy, abusing him, using violence on him, and expressing an intention to kill him. He was in frail health and largely defenceless against you.
“Your voice can be heard in the background, threatening to kill him.
“He may have died on the ninth of June, the date you later told your daughter he had died.
“If it was not on the ninth of June, it was shortly after that he was stabbed to death in the attic room.
“He received five stab wounds, two of which pierced his heart.
“I am sure you intended his death and nothing less.
“The wounds could not have been inflicted by someone intending only really serious harm.
“You hid his body in the attic room cupboard, probably for some days.”
The judge said he was “sure” that when Rickards used her husband’s bank card to buy cleaning products, it was to try to get rid of blood from the carpet in the cupboard.
Gardeners had visited the property on June 26 and Rickards asked them to “leave the grass they had cut under some bushes”, the court had heard.
Mr Rickards’ body was later found in that location.
