- Vasile Culea broke into Freda Walker’s home to steal thousands of pounds her husband had borrowed.
- The 86-year-old was bound, gagged, and beaten to death with a meat cleaver.
- Mr Walker, 88, survived but later passed away from cancer.
A life sentence for the murder of an 86-year-old woman who was bound, gagged, and beaten to death.
After breaking into Freda Walker’s Derbyshire home to steal the thousands of pounds her husband had borrowed for home upgrades, Vasile Culea killed her.
Ken Walker, her 88-year-old husband, was also bound, gagged, and beaten by Culea; he survived but later passed away from cancer.
Upon conviction, the 34-year-old was sentenced at Derby Crown Court.
At the same court, Mr. Justice Andrew Henshaw sentenced Culea to life in prison with a minimum of 34 years.
In addition, he handed down a concurrent 14-year prison term for intentionally causing serious physical damage to Mr. Walker.
The judge told Culea he had attacked the couple “remorselessly”, inflicting multiple injuries on both of them.
“The murder of Freda Walker was aggravated by the fact she was particularly vulnerable because of her age,” the judge said.
“It was also aggravated by you applying tight restraints, head and neck wrappings to Freda Walker, failing to release her before you left, and making no attempt to summon help afterwards, for example by making an anonymous call.”
Culea was convicted guilty of killing Mrs. Walker, but he was cleared of trying to kill her husband.
The judge added that he was unsure whether Culea attacked Mrs. Walker with the intention of killing her. The prosecution merely needed to show that Culea meant to harm her severely in order to convict him of murder.
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On January 14, Culea attacked the couple at their Station Road, Langwith Junction, house.
For home upgrades, Mr. Walker had previously taken out £30,000 and stashed cash in various locations throughout the house.
How Culea discovered this money was a mystery. In his testimony, he said that he went in search of the house after overhearing two people discussing a “rich mansion” nearby.
On the day he attacked the two, he owed more than £11,000 and had lost $280 in several betting shops.
CCTV played in court showed him outside the couple’s home before he went inside.
Only Culea knows exactly what happened inside the house, because Mr. Walker had no memory of the attacks.
“Kenneth couldn’t tell anyone what had happened and simply repeated ‘my wife, my wife’,” said Michael Auty KC, who prosecuted the case.
Mr. Walker never returned home, and died in hospital on 29 August.
“He asked about Freda throughout the remainder of his time,” Mr. Auty said.
The prosecution suggested Culea had tortured Mrs. Walker in order to make Mr. Walker reveal where the money was hidden, and that he became increasingly frustrated when Mr. Walker could not remember where it was.
The court heard Culea could also have suffocated Mrs. Walker – by placing plastic bags and a pillowcase over her head – as a “last resort” in order to stop her from being able to identify him.
A pathologist said she died due to a combination of head injuries and airway obstruction, and either of these could have been sufficient to kill her.
The couple were found by a concerned neighbour, Judith Casey.
Mrs Walker was lying dead in a pool of her own blood, with multiple injuries to her head, face, limbs and torso where Culea had beaten and stamped on her.
Mr Walker was left fighting for his life with extensive injuries, including bleeding to his brain.
“I just feel more wary of everything,” Ms Casey told the BBC outside court.
“My confidence has gone I think. I just don’t feel like I did but you’ve got to get on with your life, you’ve got to carry on.”
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