Police have released body-worn video showing the moment a lie led to the arrest of a University of Worcester forensics student who admitted murdering a sex worker in a “kill room” likened to one from the US TV show Dexter. Benjamin Day, 20, cut his hand open while attempting to dismember the body of Maria Saceanu, which later led to his capture.
Day changed his plea at Wolverhampton Crown Court on October 6 to admit murdering 24-year-old Romanian sex worker Ms Saceanu. The change of plea prompted West Midlands Police to release the footage.
Lies unravelled in police footage
A 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 of them 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.
The footage shows Day lying to officers after claiming to have been bitten by a wild dog or a fox, which they found suspicious and which started the downfall of his crime being uncovered. Day can be seen 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.
Arrest in hospital
An officer can also be heard questioning Day's account in the footage, filmed near the junction of Highview Street and Brewery Street in Dudley. In a further clip released by police, Day is seen wearing a Dexter-style khaki top as he nods towards the officer arresting him at 3.42am on December 21 last year, while lying on a bed at Dudley's Russells Hall Hospital. He is also heard saying: “I have got four fingers thankfully.”
Day, of Yeadon Close, Redditch, Worcestershire, has been remanded in custody and faces a mandatory life sentence when he is sentenced on December 4.
Copycat of TV series
Opening the Crown's case on Monday, prosecutor Rachel Brand KC said the defendant spent several hours preparing the so-called kill room. Day 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. But after an hour-long delay to proceedings on Tuesday, Day returned from the cells to the dock and appeared to smirk as he nodded towards the court clerk and entered a guilty plea.
The change of plea came around three hours after jurors were shown footage of Day claiming to have been attacked by a dog or fox “near a bush”. The court heard Day left the Airbnb at about 12.30am on December 21, walked some distance away and then called 999 at 12.50am asking for medical help.
During his conversations with police, Day said he had driven over to the Dudley area to look for a “random girl” in a bar. Asked by an officer if he had been set up and attacked, Day said he had been injured by an animal that “might have been a fox”.
Ms Saceanu died as a result of wounds to her neck causing damage to her carotid arteries or jugular veins, with a number of wounds to her hands “consistent with efforts to protect herself”.
Explaining the Crown's case at the start of what was expected to be a two-week trial, Ms Brand said of Day: “He lured Maria Saceanu to a room that he had rented via Airbnb. He had prepared himself to kill her. He had planned to dispose of her body without leaving signs of what had happened and he planned to get away with it. But it all went wrong and he was caught.”
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 what she said were “similarities” between the death and the Dexter TV series, Ms Brand told jurors: “Dexter Morgan works as a forensic scientist in a police department – and the broad premise of the programme is that he is a serial killer who knows how to cover his tracks. The defendant changed his university course … to study applied biology and forensics. Dexter wears a khaki T-shirt. The defendant had purchased just such a T-shirt and was wearing it when he was arrested. He had changed into ‘Dexter’ clothing before Maria Saceanu arrived at the house. In the TV series Dexter prepares a ‘kill room’ when carrying out his attacks, lined with plastic sheeting which he fixes using a staple gun or duct/gaffer tape. And this is exactly how the defendant had prepared the room. Dexter wears an apron, a plastic visor and gloves when killing his victims – all such items were found in the bedroom (at the Airbnb).”
Other similarities with the TV series included a canvas roll containing knives found in the bedroom, the dismemberment attempts and microscope slides containing blood thought to be a “trophy” from the killing, Ms Brand said. Day faces a mandatory life sentence when he is sentenced on December 4.
