On a warm September evening in the tiny Derbyshire town of Killamarsh, 11-year-old Connie Gent was preparing for a sleepover at her best friend Lacey Bennett's house. She was set to spend the evening with Lacey, her brother John Paul, 13, and their mum Terri Harris, 35.
But late that Sunday, reports began to emerge of an unspeakable tragedy. Four people had been found dead at a house, and a man had been arrested. Police launched a murder inquiry, though no details of the victims were initially released. The reporter, then a young agency journalist, had an uneasy sense that it was a mother and her children. It almost always is in these circumstances, sadly.
By the time the reporter arrived at the scene on Monday morning, word was going around the town that it was a woman, her two children and a young friend. Neighbours in the close-knit community were in shock, and seasoned reporters were visibly upset by the realisation that young lives had been violently snatched away.
Father's heartbreak
The man arrested was Terri's partner, Damien Bendall, who had been in a relationship with her for around six months. As the news broke, Jason Bennett, father of John Paul and Lacey, was on holiday in Devon. He posted on Facebook: "Life will never be the same. I love you both more than anything. Please look after each other. Gone too soon with so much to live for."
He made a four-hour dash back to the area and broke down at the police cordon. The reporter described the haunting moment as unlike any sound heard before, with Jason sitting in the road in floods of tears. His parents later arrived and said he was blaming himself.
His mother Debbie paid tribute to her grandchildren. "Lacey was a pink girl, very sparkly. John was into his computers. They were the most well-mannered kids you would want to meet," she said. "Always please and thank you, if you ever bought them a present, the first thing they would do is go on Facebook and thank you."
Killer's boasts
Police said they were called at 7.26am over concerns for the safety of a man at the house. It later emerged in court that Bendall had called 999 himself. Body-worn camera footage showed him boasting to arresting officers that he had murdered four people and had stabbed himself "four inches into his chest".
At the police station, he claimed he had killed five people because Terri was pregnant. "Bet you don’t usually get four murders in Killamarsh do you? Well, five because my missus was having a baby," he said. He also told officers: "The whole house is covered in claret. I used the hammer. I didn’t realise what I did until I walked into my room and saw my missus and my daughter."
Whole life order
Derby Crown Court heard that Bendall had also raped Lacey as she lay dying. Mr Justice Sweeney handed him a whole life order. "You carried out brutal, vicious and cruel attacks on a defenceless woman and three young children," the judge said. He described how Bendall went around the house attacking Terri in the main bedroom, John in the bathroom, Connie in another bedroom and Lacey, hitting them with a claw hammer "with such ferocity, their skulls were literally smashed in".
The house in Chandos Crescent has since been bulldozed, but the aftermath of the brutal murders will live with the reporter forever, as it will with those who live in the quiet street.
