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A football coach was told that he would spend at least 24 years in prison after he was found guilty yesterday of murdering his girlfriend, a model, who named her killer with her dying words.
Amy Leigh Barnes, 19, dialled 999 as she lay wounded with multiple stab wounds inflicted with a kitchen knife by Ricardo Morrison, who had also slashed her across the face. The aspiring actress told an operator: “I can’t breathe. I’ve been stabbed. Please help me. I’m dying. He’s stabbed me to death.” Asked who had attacked her, she replied: “My boyfriend . . . I’m going . . . I can’t see.”
Morrison, 22, who denied murder, was jailed for life with a minimum term of 24 years by a judge who said he was an evil man who subjected his girlfriend to “a campaign of physical, emotional and psychological abuse”.
As the verdict was delivered at Manchester Crown Court, Morrison clutched a Bible, bowed his head and appeared to cry. The jury was unaware that he had four previous convictions for assault and a record of violence towards women. Mr Justice MacDuff told him: “You are a bully who will hit and injure anyone who gets in his way. Particularly women. And particularly women with whom you are in a relationship. You are dangerous beyond words.”
After killing Ms Barnes last November, Morrison fled their home in Farnworth, near Bolton, to his mother’s house in Birmingham, where she allowed him to wash his bloodstained clothes.
Melda Wilks, 50, a West Midlands police officer who sat beside her son in the dock, was found not guilty of assisting an offender by helping him to destroy evidence. She faces an internal disciplinary inquiry.
During the trial, details emerged of a stormy ten-month relationship in which Morrison was regularly abusive and violent towards Ms Barnes. The jury heard that she was often seen in bars and clubs frequented by professional footballers, some of whom she dated. Morrison resented her friendships with other men. In a text message sent to a footballer friend days before her death, Ms Barnes described him as “a psycho”.
<span style="font-weight: bold">“For the past seven months, Ricardo’s been hitting me, locking me in rooms with him so I can’t go out, putting knives to my throat, telling me he’s going to kill me, putting pillows over my face,” </span>she wrote.
On the morning of her death, she texted another footballer, saying that Morrison had punched her and slammed her arm in a door.
When Morrison left the house after locking her inside, Ms Barnes phoned her mother, Karyn Killiner, and arranged for her father to free her. But before he reached the house her boyfriend had returned and launched his fatal attack. Morrison denied that he had ever been violent towards Ms Barnes. He said that someone else must have stabbed her and claimed to have fled because he was “scared, in shock” and wanted to find a church.
Speaking after the sentencing, Mrs Killiner, 41, an art teacher, described Morrison as <span style="font-weight: bold"> “an absolute monster” who had wormed his way into the family’s affections after meeting her daughter on Facebook. “At first he was very charming. But the other side of him is controlling and he had complete power over Amy.” </span>
Amy Leigh Barnes, 19, dialled 999 as she lay wounded with multiple stab wounds inflicted with a kitchen knife by Ricardo Morrison, who had also slashed her across the face. The aspiring actress told an operator: “I can’t breathe. I’ve been stabbed. Please help me. I’m dying. He’s stabbed me to death.” Asked who had attacked her, she replied: “My boyfriend . . . I’m going . . . I can’t see.”
Morrison, 22, who denied murder, was jailed for life with a minimum term of 24 years by a judge who said he was an evil man who subjected his girlfriend to “a campaign of physical, emotional and psychological abuse”.
As the verdict was delivered at Manchester Crown Court, Morrison clutched a Bible, bowed his head and appeared to cry. The jury was unaware that he had four previous convictions for assault and a record of violence towards women. Mr Justice MacDuff told him: “You are a bully who will hit and injure anyone who gets in his way. Particularly women. And particularly women with whom you are in a relationship. You are dangerous beyond words.”
After killing Ms Barnes last November, Morrison fled their home in Farnworth, near Bolton, to his mother’s house in Birmingham, where she allowed him to wash his bloodstained clothes.
Melda Wilks, 50, a West Midlands police officer who sat beside her son in the dock, was found not guilty of assisting an offender by helping him to destroy evidence. She faces an internal disciplinary inquiry.
During the trial, details emerged of a stormy ten-month relationship in which Morrison was regularly abusive and violent towards Ms Barnes. The jury heard that she was often seen in bars and clubs frequented by professional footballers, some of whom she dated. Morrison resented her friendships with other men. In a text message sent to a footballer friend days before her death, Ms Barnes described him as “a psycho”.
<span style="font-weight: bold">“For the past seven months, Ricardo’s been hitting me, locking me in rooms with him so I can’t go out, putting knives to my throat, telling me he’s going to kill me, putting pillows over my face,” </span>she wrote.
On the morning of her death, she texted another footballer, saying that Morrison had punched her and slammed her arm in a door.
When Morrison left the house after locking her inside, Ms Barnes phoned her mother, Karyn Killiner, and arranged for her father to free her. But before he reached the house her boyfriend had returned and launched his fatal attack. Morrison denied that he had ever been violent towards Ms Barnes. He said that someone else must have stabbed her and claimed to have fled because he was “scared, in shock” and wanted to find a church.
Speaking after the sentencing, Mrs Killiner, 41, an art teacher, described Morrison as <span style="font-weight: bold"> “an absolute monster” who had wormed his way into the family’s affections after meeting her daughter on Facebook. “At first he was very charming. But the other side of him is controlling and he had complete power over Amy.” </span>
] If there weren't so much PC push towards just live as one and love everyone, that monster would not have gotten close enough to kill her."</span>
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