31st-July-2008
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Jailed: The female care worker, 44, who murdered disabled patient | |
From the Daily Mail: Jailed: The female care worker, 44, who murdered disabled patient to get £70,000 from his will Quote:
A care worker was jailed for at least 30 years today for murdering a defenceless disabled man in a bid to net £70,000 from his will.
Thelma Purchase, 44, was told by a judge that the killing of Greg Baker was a ‘truly horrible crime’ motivated by greed.
Purchase’s son, Lance Rudge, and his friend Shane Edge, were ordered to serve minimum terms of 18 and 20 years respectively for the murder of Mr Baker, who was killed in Alton, Staffordshire, in June last year.
The three defendants, all from Stoke-on-Trent, were convicted of murder on July 10 following a month-long trial which heard that Purchase hoped to inherit a share of Mr Baker’s cottage.
The victim, who was left crippled by childhood polio and suffered from muscular dystrophy, was found suffocated at his home by another carer paying a routine visit.
Passing mandatory life sentences, Mr Justice Saunders told Edge, of Cliveden Place, Longton, and his co-defendants, both of Sherwood Road, Meir, that they had murdered a generous, intelligent and well-loved man.
The judge, sitting at Stafford Crown Court, added that Purchase would have known that Mr Baker was unable to defend himself and that his door was left unlocked at night.
‘I have to sentence you for a truly horrible crime,’ the judge added.
‘A disabled man aged 61 was murdered in his own bed... in his own home with his own pillow.’
Addressing the male defendants, who are both aged 20, Mr Justice Saunders went on: ‘The reality has to be faced that you were 19 [at the time of the murder] - you were not children and you did commit this offence for gain and you knew that the victim was disabled.’
All three defendants denied playing any part in the killing despite mobile phone evidence linking Purchase to the Alton area and testimony that the male defendants had talked about suffocating a man to trigger a payment from a will.
It emerged during their trial that Mr Baker had given Purchase £1,500 to buy the Citroen Saxo which she used to drive Edge to Alton.
Edge, who smothered Mr Baker after entering his home under the cover of darkness, had been promised £8,000 if he helped to carry out the killing.
At the opening of the trial, prosecutor Christopher Hotten, QC, described Purchase as ‘a woman who wouldn’t wait’ for her inheritance.
The mother-of-three met Mr Baker when she worked as his main care worker, and remained his friend after she stopped working with him some years ago.
In a police interview in the days following the death, Purchase told officers that Mr Baker was a ‘lonely man’ she viewed as a father figure.
Detective Chief Inspector Ken Raper, who led the inquiry, said the murder had been cowardly and callous.
‘Hopefully today’s outcome at court will allow Mr Baker’s family and everyone who knew him to move on from these tragic events,’ the officer said.
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