Karl Hutchings, 48, gave police a map showing where he had buried the dismembered body of Julie Buckley, 55, after killing her last year. Her remains were discovered in 10 pieces in a shallow grave in the Cambridgeshire village of Wimblington, Cambridge Crown Court heard.
Murder and Discovery
Hutchings pleaded guilty on September 15 last year to the murder of Julie Buckley. Prosecutor Christine Agnew said that Hutchings provided police with a map to locate Ms Buckley’s remains. She had been staying with Hutchings at his home in Christchurch, Cambridgeshire. She was last seen alive in CCTV footage at a Budgens supermarket in the nearby town of March on January 28, 2025.
Ms Agnew stated that Ms Buckley and Hutchings were “friends who had spent some time together - they were both addicted to class A drugs.” Concerns were raised for her welfare after she failed to attend appointments, and it appeared that Ms Buckley was murdered between January 29 and the morning of January 30.
Post-Murder Actions and Arrest
After the murder, Hutchings used Ms Buckley’s bank card to buy alcohol and later sold her car for £500. He initially denied the murder before changing his plea. He told a teacher at HMP Peterborough that he had “waited it out” before pleading guilty as he “hoped he could be dealt with on a diminished basis,” Ms Agnew said. Hutchings told the teacher he killed Ms Buckley “because she had been stealing from him and had tried to convince him he was mad.”
He described hitting Ms Buckley with a hammer over the head, which “made her woozy,” and then hitting her again “which finished her off.” A post-mortem examination indicated there had been 11 blows to Ms Buckley’s skull. Hutchings was arrested on February 13 last year, and “extensive blood staining” was found on a sofa at his home, part of the living room carpet was missing, and there were burnt items in the garden.
Defense and Sentencing
Allison Summers, mitigating for Hutchings, said he had a “long history of mental health problems and significant drug addiction.” She said Ms Buckley had been homeless and Hutchings “felt sorry for her” and offered a place to stay. She noted that the “precise trigger and exact sequence (of what happened) may never be known with any degree of certainty,” but it was “likely to have started spontaneously when Hutchings lost it and began striking Ms Buckley.”
The defence lawyer added that Hutchings had been released from a psychiatric unit less than three months before the murder and that he pleaded guilty after being advised that a psychiatric report did not support a medical defence of diminished responsibility. The judge, Mark Bishop, adjourned the case until Thursday for sentencing at Cambridge Crown Court.
