Who is Lucy Fox? Woman who stabbed mom, 65, and dumped body near river 'unfit' for trial
Warning: Graphic content
Just hours after attempting to kill her brother in a fire, a woman, Lucy Fox, stabbed her mother to death, cut up her body and placed the dismembered pieces in trash liners and dropped it close to a river, reveal reports on Tuesday, July 19. The crime took place last year and Fox has not been found "unfit to stand trial."
The crime is reminiscent of a matricide that took place last month when a 49-year-old man was charged with killing his 80-year-old mother and then leaving her organs in a macabre display on the welcome mat near the front door. In June, another man was charged with fatally beating and sexually abusing his 65-year-old mother till she died a day before Mother's Day.
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Last month, a teenaged boy drowned his alcoholic father while attempting to 'exorcise his demons' through a late-night baptism in a Massachusetts pond, believing he saw "demons" in his father's eyes and that he was exorcising a demon named 'Dirty Dan'. In a more gruesome case, a convicted cannibal killed his mother, cut her up into 1,000 pieces, and then ate parts of her body, while feeding some of it to his dog. The incident of Lucy Fox is the latest addition to this list of gruesome parricides.
Police say human remains have been found in the search for missing Shropshire woman, Judy Fox. The 65 year old hadn't been seen since 14 June. Her daughter, 38 year old Lucy Fox, was previously charged with her murder. #CapitalReports pic.twitter.com/rO7YXUhuzH
— Capital Midlands News (@CapitalMidsNews) July 10, 2020
Who is Lucy Fox?
Lucy Fox, 39, is a resident of Bernard’s Hill, Bridgnorth in the West Midlands area of the United Kingdom. Fox was charged with murder and arson with the purpose to endanger life after admitting to the offenses when she was detained, but she was found unfit to stand trial on Monday, July 19, at Stafford Crown Court, the Daily Mail reported.
According to the Shropshire Star, Lucy attacked her mother Judith Fox, 65, better known as 'Judy', at her house in Haughton Drive, Shifnal, where she had worked as a company nurse for the Shropshire Star and Express & Star for 13 years. Judy's daughter then discarded her body in the woods. She then used her mother's credit card to purchase a ready meal, whisky and bin liners from Asda, which she subsequently used to dispose of the body parts, according to jurors.
Why did Lucy Fox kill her mother?
“It seemed that her daughter Lucy was unhappy about the family home being sold and we say took matters into her own hands to stop it. On June 11 last year Lucy Fox contacted the Community Mental Health team and expressed concern about her mother’s mental health. She spoke about her mother moving and said that she was not taking her medication. This was a false report," prosecuting barrister Kevin Hegarty QC told Stafford Crown Court.
Hegarty told the jury that Lucy went to a Telford store the next day at 2.20 pm and purchased two knives. He claimed she arrived in Coalport about 4 pm in her blue Ford Ka. She drove a Ford Focus to a store in Cheapside, the same day, departing at 5.40 pm.
A 38 year old woman's been charged with murdering a missing woman in Shropshire. Lucy Fox is also accused of arson, after enquiries into a house fire in Bridgnorth on Sunday led to concerns for the welfare of a 65 year old woman in Shifnal, who's not been seen since. #HeartNews pic.twitter.com/R7qSAPqofS
— Heart Midlands News (@HeartMidsNews) June 18, 2020
Ceilings, walls, cupboards splattered with blood
“At about 6 pm Lucy Fox drove into Haughton Drive and went to her mother’s house, emerging about 20 minutes later. A neighbor assumed that following the latest easing of restrictions she had formed a bubble with her mother Judith, who the family described to BBC as "a wonderful mother and a devoted grandmother". It is the prosecution’s case that while she was in the house, whether during those 20 minutes or later that evening, she killed her mother," Hegarty said.
Following a fire caused by Fox at the front door of her brother Nicholas's home in Apley Park in Bridgnorth in the early hours of June 14, police were called to the property, and this was the time when the homeowner Judith's disappearance came to light. When they investigated the property police found that the kitchen was covered in blood, splattered over the ceiling, walls, cupboard drawers, and back door. A lump hammer, saw, and an axe were also discovered nearby, The Sun reported. Two knives - one with a 10cm blade and another with a 15cm blade, were also found.
What did Lucy Fox do with her mother's body?
"Where was she? Only Lucy Fox knew. The prosecution will ask you to conclude that Lucy Fox killed her mother; no one saw Judy Fox again," said Hagerty, adding that a police search along the River Severn brought up the first remains of Judy's body at around 10.30 am on July 10.
Fox dismembered the corpse before dumping it in the undergrowth near the River Severn and Ironbridge Gorge in Coalport, according to the court. Judy's torso and arms have yet to be discovered, the Daily Mail reported. On July 10, her decapitated skull was discovered in a plastic bag, with additional body parts dispersed about the region in numerous bin liners.
"The area was subject to very careful search - shoulders, two legs and some fragments of skin and the right breast were found. These were examined by a forensic pathologist, he found the segments of the breast and shoulder showed the presence of stab wounds," Hagerty said. "The stab injuries might have been caused when Judith Fox was attacked but they might have also been caused when Judith Fox was being dismembered," he said, adding: "But I will ask you to bear in mind that Lucy Fox was armed with a knife, she killed her mother. She must have killed her mother by stabbing her. There was no other purpose for having the knife."
He added that "the amount of blood in the kitchen compared with absence in other parts of the house shows that is where she was killed." "She told the police on the doorstep she had killed her mother and she told police she had tried to kill her brother and there is evidence that she set fire to a doormat in the early hours of Sunday," he said, adding that Lucy confessed to both crimes when she was arrested.
Fox was tried in her absence and is charged with murder and with arson with intent to endanger life. She has not entered a plea to either charge. Judge Kristina Montgomery QC previously told the jury that the court had decided that she was “not fit to participate in the trial in any meaningful way”.