A migrant from Romania killed an 86-year-old woman and left her 88-year-old husband requiring round-the-clock care until his death months later.
34-year-old Vasile Culea broke into the home of Kenneth and Freda Walker in the suburbs of Shirebrook, Derbyshire, in January, after having “heard the couple had a significant amount of money in the home they had shared for more than 60 years,” according to an official police press release.
“But when the couple either could not, or would not, give Culea the money, he brutally assaulted them,” the release — which studiously avoided mentioning Culea’s status as a foreign national, or the fact that he was still in the country despite having already been convicted of a violent crime in 2017 — recalled.
Culea “hog-tied” the couple, placing a bag over Mrs Walker’s head, and “brutally attacked them both leaving them with brain injuries, lacerations and many other injuries,” said sentencing judge Mr Justice Henshaw in remarks quoted by The Guardian.
The court had heard that despite Mrs Walker and her husband both suffering “horrific” injuries she might well have survived had she not been “abandoned without any assistance” by Culea “with coverings to her face obstructing her airway”.
Despite leaving Mr Walker with brain damage and a broken neck and “dependent on nurses for all of his needs”, according to The Guardian, local media claims that his death a few months after the attack “was not directly connected to the attack”.
Somehow, he was cleared of attempted murder in the case of Mr Walker, although he was convicted of assault occasioning grievous bodily harm with intent.
In the case of Mrs Walker, he was convicted of murder, receiving a so-called “life” sentence — but he will be eligible for parole after a minimum term of just 34 years.
It is rare that even very serious murders are not eventually paroled, with even the likes of David McGreavy, the so-called ‘Monster of Worcester’ who murdered a baby and two small children and impaled them on railings outside their mother’s home being freed by anonymous Parole Board members after a hearing not open to the public, aged just 68.
Temporary Detective Inspector Carolyne Van Schaick, speaking on behalf of Derbyshire Constabulary, said she hoped Culea’s “life” sentence would provide “some degree of closure for Freda and Ken’s family and friends.”
The force did not raise the question of why Culea was even in the country to carry out the attack after his 2017 conviction.
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