A sado-masochistic couple, who carried out a ‘bloodthirsty’ murder of a woman, dragged her dismembered body through the streets in a suitcase before dumping her remains in a park.
Gemma Watts, 49, and Steve Sansom, 45,have been jailed for life after confessing to perverting the course of justice as well as the murder of Sarah Mayhew.
The 38-year-old’s dismembered body was found after police had been alerted to remains Rowdon FIelds, New Addington in south London on April 2, 2024.Â
Ms Mayhew’s head, arms and legs were discovered by officers who had been contacted after a dog walking in the fields returned to its owner with a human bone – her torso later found in the River Wandle on May 21 of last year.
Eerie CCTV footage show the depraved couple carrying parts of her remains in a suitcase along the streets on March 11, 2024, with Ms Mayhew never seen again after joining Samson at his flat three days prior.
Another clip shows Sansom using cash to buy a 300mm hacksaw, a 300mm blade and 14-litre bucket at a hardware store ahead of the cold-blooded killing, whilst Watts could be seen buying cleaning products from a retailer.Â
Later, the duo can be seen hurling a black suitcase containing Ms Mayhews body, whilst walking their dog.Â
After they alighted a train at Addlington, the barbaric couple can be seen with large shopping bags and their pet in tow, before discarding parts of the 38-year-old’s body around a field.
Alongside the murder charge, the couple also admitted to perverting the course of justice after they distributed Ms Mayhew’s remains at ‘various locations’ and also cleaned up the scene, the Old Bailey heard.Â
On Thursday, Mrs Justice Cutts sentenced Samson to life imprisonment for murder with a whole life order which means he will never be released from prison.
He was also handed a five-year prison sentence for perverting the course of justice to run concurrently.
Watts held back tears as she was given a life sentence with a minimum term of 30 years as well as a five-year jail term for perverting the course of justice to run concurrently. If she is ever released, she will spend the rest of her life on licence.Â
Prosecutor Tom Little KC told the court that messages between Samson and Watts show their relationship was ‘characterised by sado-masochistic violence’.Â
He also told the court that the pair had a relationship of ‘such was the intensity’ that ‘they have often referred to dying together if caught’.
He said: ‘The defendants acting together conducted the planned and premeditated blood-thirsty murder of Sarah Mayhew.
‘It is a murder which the prosecution submit involved sexual and/or sadistic conduct.
‘Having committed the murder they then made very extensive efforts to pervert the course of justice over a number of days.’
The court heard that the pair shared a range of ‘depraved messages’, detailing their desires to kill victims involved in sexual activity with them with knives, and then have sex with each other whilst covered in the victim’s blood.Â
Watts and Sansom also talked about eating human flesh in their correspondence but there is no evidence to suggest they did so.Â
The duo sat in silence in the dock as details of their ‘kinky’ sexual relationship – including a stream of messages between them about bestiality, humiliation and causing hurt – were outlined at their sentencing.
Mr Little added: ‘Given what was subsequently to happen to Sarah Mayhew this murderous, sexual and sadistic discussion was manifestly not an idle fantasy.’
Ms Mayhew, who lived in New Addington, on the outskirts of Croydon, was never seen again after she joined Samson, whom she had met years before on a dating site, at his ground floor flat in Sutton at about 11pm on March 8 2024. Watts was already at the property.
Mr Little said: ‘From that point in time she was never seen again and she never left that property alive.’
It is not known how long Ms Mayhew was alive or precisely what happened to her body after being murdered, the court was told.Â
Ms Mayhew’s head and limbs were found more than eight miles away in Rowdown Field in New Addington, just over three weeks later on April 2 2024.
Her torso was discovered much later in the River Wandle and some pieces of evidence were destroyed or disposed of by the defendants, the court heard.
The prosecution believe Ms Mayhew must have been killed or incapacitated inside Sansom’s flat on the night of March 8 to 9 2024.Â
given the messages sent between the defendants in the months before ‘it is not credible to conclude that she was killed immediately.’
Sansom later tried to justify what they had done, saying ‘we’re not evil, we done the world a service’.
The court head that Sansom sent Watts a voice message on September 11 2023 which said: ‘Everything looks like meat now don’t they? A plaything, something to cut, something to bleed, they all look different now.’
She replied: ‘Wonder what they taste like, cooked flesh, maybe even rare so blood drips down our faces.’
A screenshot of a note was sent by Watts to Sansom on September 7 2023, saying: ‘I am writing this of my own free will. Should any serious injury, or even death occur whilst I am with Steven Samson let it be made fully understood that I enter the act of violent, dangerous sex games with Steven Samson of my own free will.’
Sansom is facing his second life sentence, having been jailed in May 1999 after admitting the murder and robbery of a minicab driver on Christmas Eve the previous year, when he ordered a cab to take him home from East Croydon.
The victim in that case, 59-year-old married father-of-two Terence Boyle, had crawled from his cab after Sansom attacked him and stole £25 to buy presents.
Sansom, then 20, laughed afterwards and told a friend: ‘His kids are going to have to see him in hospital over Christmas.’
He was freed from prison on licence in 2019 after his case was considered by the Parole Board, and was under probation supervision when he killed for a second time.
The Ministry of Justice has confirmed a serious further offence review is under way.
The judge said: ‘Her fear and suffering must have been acute as she realised why she was there and what was happening.
‘She was an innocent woman lured to that flat to die in order for you could both act out your bloodthirsty and wicked fantasy.’
The judge said that Sansom ‘had murder in mind’ and that Watts who was obsessed with him took part in the murder.
The judge added: ‘There is clear and proper inference in my view that this murder involved sexual and sadistic conduct.’
The prosecution believe Ms Mayhew must have been killed or incapacitated inside Sansom’s flat on the night of March 8 to 9 2024 and given the messages sent between the defendants in the months before ‘it is not credible to conclude that she was killed immediately,’ Mr Little KC said.
Sansom tried later tried to justify what they had done, saying ‘we’re not evil, we done the world a service’.
