Man stabbed in heart hours after bride’s threat to kill him in Lancashire

A new bride was overheard telling her solicitor husband that she was going to kill him hours before he was found dead in bed having been stabbed in the heart, Manchester Crown Court has heard.

Sharon Edwards, 42, was witnessed by a police officer grabbing David Edwards’ shirt and saying, “I’m gonna fucking kill ya”, during the early hours of August 23 2015, shortly after they returned home from a Spanish holiday.

Edwards is accused of murdering the 51-year-old defence solicitor at their home in Chorley, Lancashire, using a kitchen knife on their two-month wedding anniversary.

She denies the charge.

Jurors were shown police body cam footage of the couple outside the Duke of York pub before being escorted home “worse for wear” in a police vehicle.

During the journey, the “violent” defendant, who was said to regularly beat her husband, was heard telling him, “I swear David, when I wake up tomorrow I don’t know what mood I’m going to be in.”

Later that day he was pronounced dead, having sustained a 3in (8cm) long and 0.8in (2cm) wide knife stab wound to the chest in the second of two knife attacks at their home in as many days.

A black handled kitchen knife stained with blood was found at their home.

A mobile police patrol witnessed Edwards shouting and screaming during the early hours of August 23 and had stopped to intervene.

The officer can be heard on the footage telling a colleague: “She was swinging off his shirt, (saying) ‘I’m gonna fucking kill ya’.”

Edwards can be heard rambling in the back of the police car after the officer offered to give the couple a lift home, boasting it was a “free lift home” but asking they be dropped off away from the house because it was “a posh area”.

Still wearing a summer maxi dress having arrived at Manchester Airport from Majorca earlier in the evening, she was asked by police constable Michelle Davies “What was the argument about?” Edwards replied “Shit”, adding “I’m tired, I want to go home.”

Minutes later she said to her new husband: “You fucking idiot. Come on, free lift home, move, come on David.”

The court was previously told that, following a year-long romance, the couple had married in Las Vegas. Edwards was said to have “perhaps quite liked the idea of being Mrs Edwards, a solicitor’s wife”, but following confirmation that he was to be made redundant, arguments ensued.

The trial continues.