A 19-year-old forensics student inspired by the TV series Dexter has admitted to murdering a woman in an Airbnb room he had spent hours preparing. Benjamin William Day pleaded guilty at Wolverhampton Crown Court on Tuesday (October 6) to the killing of Maria Saceanu, 24.
Police bodycam footage released after the plea shows Day being questioned about Maria's death. The victim, originally from Romania, was lured to a plastic-lined room in Tividale, West Mids., which cost £40-a-night to stay in. Day stabbed the sex worker 78 times before attempting to dismember her, but abandoned the plan after cutting his hand on December 21, 2025.
Bodycam footage shows arrest
The footage shows officers finding Day sitting on the pavement with duct tape wrapped around his injured hand, wearing a Dexter-style khaki top. When asked if he was okay, Day replied: “I was attacked by a wild dog.” After being examined by an officer, Day said he had ‘four fingers’ and had wrapped the wound himself, at one point looking up with a smirk.
Suspicious about the duct tape, an officer asked: “Where did you get the gaffer tape from?” Day replied: “I brought it with me. It was in my car.” Another officer said: “What’s gone on? Have you been attacked? Have you been somewhere to meet someone and something’s gone on and you’ve ended up injured? To be honest with you, your story doesn’t quite check out.” Day calmly responded: “I don’t know if it was a wild dog or what happened. I don’t know.”
Arrest and guilty plea
Later footage shows Day on a hospital trolley with his left hand heavily bandaged at around 3.40am. An officer told him: “Right Ben, it’s 3.42 hours and you are under arrest on suspicion of murder.” Day nodded and remained silent as his rights were read.
Day had been expected to deny murder, claim self-defence and say he set up the room to film a ‘tribute’ to Dexter for TikTok. A Home Office pathologist told the court that Maria likely died from wounds to her neck, causing damage to her carotid arteries, with hand wounds ‘consistent with efforts to protect herself’.
Defence barrister Gurdeep Garcha KC said: “He is well aware of the nature and inevitability of the sentence that must follow. It seems to us that given his age and the absence of (previous) criminal offending, the court would be assisted by a pre-sentence report.” Day was remanded in custody and will be sentenced on December 4.
