FAMILY-ON-FAMILY ASSAULTS AND DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

COUNT 13

A frightened wife had a premonition of her own murder, and left police a
text message naming her ex-husband as the killer. Brave Julie Sheppard, 41,
was terrified that her brutal husband Howard Woodin, 47, would carry out
his threats to kill her. But she ensured that he would not get away with it,
by storing in her mobile phone the evidence which would convict him from
beyond the grave. She even warned, correctly, that he would try to claim he
acted in self-defence. Julie painstakingly keyed-in her ‘statement’ to police
which read: “20 march 03, twice 2 day Howard threatened to knife or stab
me put hand round my throat tried to push me b-wards into kitchen. Said
he would say self def.”

The damning message was found by detectives who called at her home
after the killing and examined her mobile phone. There they found the
words which she had stored hours earlier, in case she came to any harm.
Twisted Woodin attacked his ex-wife so violently he inflicted 26 wounds,
stopping halfway through to change knives when one snapped in two.
Twenty minutes before her death she called 999, but hung up when the
violent bully arrived at her home. After rowing about money and the sale of
the house they shared in Southsea, near Portsmouth, plumber Woodin
launched the frenzied attack. Then he calmly called his solicitor and
daughter before finally calling an ambulance operator, telling her that his
ex-wife had attacked him and then knifed herself. At his trial he insisted
Julie had attacked him first, slashing him in the neck and stomach. He said
she turned the five-inch vegetable knife and ten-inch bread knife on herself
and had injured herself during a struggle when he tried to disarm her.

 However pathologist Dr Hugh White told the jury it was ludicrous to
suggest Julie could have inflicted the stab wounds found on her face, neck
and left shoulder, some of which were five inches deep. There were slashes
on the backs of her hands, which experts suggested occurred when she had
tried to defend herself from Woodin’s frenzied attack. Forensic scientist
Claire Galbraith told Winchester Crown Court she believed the wounds
were inflicted while Julie was on the floor unable to defend herself. Police
Surgeon Dr David Chilvers said Woodin’s injuries were superficial and selfinflicted.
Woodin had denied murder but was convicted by the jury. Jailing
him for life, Judge Michael Brodrick told the killer: “You are a devious,
domineering, manipulative self-centred man who is just determined to get
your own way.”

Detective Sergeant Dave Sackman said after the case that the murder was
the most extreme case of domestic violence he had come across in his 22-
year police career. He said: “If you were to punch the palm of your hand 26
times and imagine it was stab wounds, it must have been a terrifying last
few moments for Mrs Sheppard.” Woodin, who dressed in designer clothes
and sported a Rolex watch and gold jewellery, met Julie at a singles club in
late 1998. They married in February 1999. Despite divorcing in December
2001, they continued to live in the same house, as she was reluctant to sell
the property while her children from a previous marriage were still at
school.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You may well consider that this is one of the most horrendous double
murders you have ever heard of, due to the fact that a police 999 operator
was able to record in the greatest detail, the frantic cries for help from a
terrified woman, whose husband was about to murder her. On 18th
November 2003, Alan Pemberton, 48, a millionaire accountant, from
Hermitage, near Newbury, Berkshire played a game of golf on a golf course
near to his home. He had been made the subject of a court injunction to
prevent him going to the former matrimonial home, where he had a history
of domestic violence against his estranged wife, Julie Pemberton. He arrived
at the £975,000 house armed with a shotgun and a large bag of cartridges.
His 17-years-old student son William was on the drive and appears to have
made an attempt to keep his crazed father from hurting his mother, who
was inside the house. The 16-minute transcript of the 999 call for help from
Julie Pemberton, was played at the inquest into her death and that of her
son William. She is telling the operator that her husband has a gun and her
son William is outside.

The coroner was told that, in the months before her tragic death, she was
so terrified that her husband would kill her that she and her brother gave
police all of her kitchen knives and Mr Pemberton’s air rifles. Death threats
had been received via text messages, phone calls and via the children, for
up to a year before her death. Mrs Pemberton’s brother, Frank Mullance told
the inquest that he had a record of a specific threat to Mrs Pemberton from
her husband. In it he said: “ Laura and Will are going to be orphans and it
is your fault.” Another threat said: “You have ruined my life. You will have
to face the consequences.”

This is an extract from Mrs Pemberton’s last few words with the 999
operator before she was murdered:

Julie Pemberton: “I am in Slanting Hill, Hermitage, I got an
injunction. My husband is out there with a gun and my son is there.
He has a gun and he’s let off some shots. My son is out there with
him, I have an injunction, he is not supposed to come within 50
metres of the house. (shots are heard) Oh my God.”
Operator: “What is your address?” (Mrs Pemberton gives the
address, there is a bang then a cry)
Julie Pemberton: “Oh God, has he hurt my son? He’s come through
the window. Please come quickly.” (Large bang and Mrs Pemberton
is heard screaming)
Operator: “Officers are on the way.”

Mrs Pemberton: “He’s breaking down the door. He is letting off
shots. He is coming in. Oh my God, please help me. I am going to
die. He has fired through both windows. I can hear him shouting and
screaming. My son is with him. He is going to get me. I think he is in
the house. I can hear him. Please help me.”
(The operator asks her to describe the house, which apparently was
quite new and possibly not yet marked on maps of Hermitage)
Mrs Pemberton: “Oh my God, please help me!”
Operator: “Where is he now?”
Mrs Pemberton: “I do not know. I am hiding in a cupboard. Oh God,
he is here. Please help me!” Operator: “Can you hear your son at all?”
Mrs Pemberton: “No. It is all quiet. He’s killed my son. Oh my God!”
Operator: “How many shots has he fired?”

Mrs Pemberton: “About a dozen. I can hear him coming. It has gone
quiet. I heard another bang. He is letting off guns. He is banging
down the door. Please help, my son could be dead. Oh God, I have
about one minute before I die. Oh my God, help me. (Two large
bangs are heard) I can hear him bashing the glass. He is coming in
now, he is coming. Oh my God! I can hear him! He is coming
through! Oh my God help me! I am hiding in the store room. He will
catch me! He is coming! Here he comes! Here he comes! Oh my
God he’s come!”( Mrs Pemberton says she cannot lock the store
room door) He is coming now!” (The door is heard opening and a
male voice says, ‘You whore!’   Mrs Pemberton cries out. Then the
line goes dead.)

 Pemberton then apparently turned the shotgun on himself and died at
the scene. Penny Cook, Mr Pemberton’s lover at the time of the shootings,
told the inquest that he may have been influenced by a similar tragedy in
the same village just a year earlier, after she found a newspaper cutting in
his possessions. She was left more than £300,000 in life insurance policies
signed over by Mr Pemberton in the month before the shootings. She said
that he was fully aware he was going to carry out the killings. He had written
a note saying: “By the time you read this I will have undertaken a pretty
callous act for which I know I will be severely berated. No one quite knows
the grief and shock I have suffered as a result of the action of my darling
wife, my need for revenge is overpowering, as I discussed, I have become
obsessed.” The Pemberton’s daughter Laura, was spared, as she was away at
university at the time of her father’s murderous spree.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------