A 20-year-old forensic student who modelled himself on the fictional serial killer Dexter spent hours preparing a plastic-lined 'kill room' in a £40-a-night Airbnb, lured a woman there and stabbed her 78 times, a court has heard.
Benjamin Day, of Yeadon Close, Redditch, Worcestershire, changed his plea at Wolverhampton Crown Court on Tuesday to admit murdering 24-year-old Romanian national Maria Saceanu. He had been expected to claim self-defence, asserting that he set up the room to film a 'tribute' to Dexter which he could post on TikTok.
How the attack unfolded
The trial heard Ms Saceanu was lured to a plastic-lined room at an Airbnb in Tividale, West Midlands, where she suffered 78 knife wounds, many inflicted after death. Day had placed her possessions into a black bin bag, ready for disposal after taking knives, scissors, a mask, an apron, disposable gloves, plastic sheeting, duct tape, a staple gun and cleaning chemicals to the scene.
Day, who cut open his hand dismembering the body, was caught on camera lying to officers claiming to have been bitten by a wild dog or a fox. Footage released by police on Wednesday shows Day bleeding onto the ground from a hand wound and falsely claiming to be unable to remember where he had parked his car, which was outside the house containing his victim's body.
Copycat behaviour detailed
Opening the Crown's case on Monday, prosecutor Rachel Brand KC said the defendant spent several hours preparing the so-called kill room. Day passed his first university year studying journalism, the court heard, but then transferred to another course in applied biology and forensics.
Ms Brand told the jury: 'We don't pretend, ladies and gentlemen, to be able to give you the deep-seated psychological reasons why he decided to kill another person – that's not our remit. But what we can tell you is that he had become fascinated with a particular television drama series – an American series – and his actions were those of a copycat, imitating the things he had seen in that programme.'
Listing similarities between the death and the Dexter TV series, Ms Brand said Dexter Morgan works as a forensic scientist in a police department and is a serial killer who knows how to cover his tracks. The defendant changed his university course to study applied biology and forensics, wore a khaki T-shirt like Dexter when arrested, and had prepared a room lined with plastic sheeting fixed with a staple gun or duct tape.
Investigation and sentencing
Detective Inspector Matt Marston, of the West Midlands Police Major Crime Team, who led the investigation, said: 'Day had an obsessive personality and had become obsessed with the character Dexter. He planned this murder in meticulous detail. It was a pre-planned brutal attack on a defenceless woman lured to the room he had rented.'
Day had been remanded in custody and faces a mandatory life sentence when he is sentenced on December 4.
