Murder accused giggled as she suggested ‘macabre’ test run for doorstep killing of businesswoman, a court is told
Alleged killer Sarah Williams tells Preston Crown Court pal Katrina Walsh came up with plan to deliver flowers to Sadie Hartley
ONE OF the friends accused of murdering a businesswoman on her doorstep “giggled” as she suggested a “macabre test run” for the crime, a court has been told.
Alleged stun gun killer Sarah Williams told a jury that Katrina Walsh conceived of a plan to deliver flowers to the home of Sadie Hartley a week before she was slain.
The Crown says it was carried out by both women as reconnaissance for the killing that Williams, 35, went on to allegedly commit to "get rid" of her love rival.
Ski travel firm sales adviser Williams is said to have driven to Ms Hartley's home in Helmshore, Lancashire and incapacitated her with a 500,000-volt stun gun before stabbing her to death on the early evening of January 14.
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The defendant, who had had an affair with Ms Hartley's partner, Ian Johnston, 57, claims she was in bed ill at the time of the murder and that the evidence instead points to Walsh as the perpetrator.
On January 7, Williams and Walsh visited a nearby Tesco store in Haslingden where the bespectacled Williams bought a £3 bunch of chrysanthemums.
Described previously as "almost the stuff of spy novels", the prosecution said the aim of the night-time delivery in Sunny Bank Road was perhaps to see if Ms Hartley opened her front door, how she might be dressed or to make doubly sure it was her address.
Giving evidence at Preston Crown Court, Williams said they had popped into Tesco to use the toilet and that Walsh then asked if she had any money on her.
She said: "I paid for the flowers and we walked out and I asked who are these for. There was a little giggle and she said 'I have got an idea'.
"At some point I said 'what idea' and and she asked me what Sadie looked like.
"She said Sadie was renting a house in Helmshore near Ian. I asked her how she knew and she laughed, and in an expression she uses she said 'I have my ways'.
"There was more giggling and she said she wanted to know what she looked like. At the time it was a bit silly."
Walsh went on to knock on the door of the £500,000 property and deliver the flowers with Williams nearby out of sight - but not hiding, she told the court.
The jury has heard that Walsh mentioned Ms Hartley's name but replied she had forgotten who the sender was and then disappeared down the drive.
Ms Hartley emailed her business partner the next day to say the episode was a "bit creepy" and "needless to say had a bad sleep last night as a result!"
Prosecutor John McDermott QC said: "You thought it was a giggly and girlie thing to do to the partner of the man you were throwing yourself at the time?"
Williams replied: "It was silly, it was ridiculous."
Mr McDermott said: "What is ridiculous is this story."
Williams said: "No, it's not."
Mr McDermott said: "It was pretty creepy what you were giggling about."
The defendant said: "It was certainly not intended by me to be creepy. Looking back, it was a stupid thing to allow to have happened."
Williams reiterated she had no desire to hurt Ms Hartley and added she had no particular interest in her either.
On January 12, Williams bought a pair of £19.99 men's steel-toecapped boots which were later discovered bloodstained at the workplace of horse riding instructor Walsh, along with the kitchen knife murder weapon and the stun gun.
Williams said Walsh suggested buying the boots as a birthday present for Mr Johnston and she later left them by mistake at her co-defendant's home.
The prosecution says Williams wore them to throw the police off the trail of a female assassin.
On the night of Ms Hartley's murder, Williams claimed that she had been in bed ill.
Williams told jurors: "I did not go out of the house."
The court was played CCTV which captured two figures outside Williams's home which Mr McDermott suggested was the defendant and her co-defendant Walsh.
Mr McDermott said: "It's you and Kit isn't it and that's where the fishtail (coat) comes into play."
She denied the suggestion responding: "It could have been anybody walking up and down there."
Mr McDermott continued: "You're always in the lead. She's always a couple of paces behind. It's a measure of your personality - you are the leader aren't you."
Williams said: "No."
The prosecutor went on: "You're in the Clio getting ready for your murderous mission."
"I am certainly not," Williams said.
Mr McDermott said that the Clio was "identical" to the one bought days earlier.
He went on to suggest that it had been one of Williams' "creatively brilliant ideas" to wear boots to the murder scene so that when "police found footprints in blood they would think it was a bloke".
He added: "That was your creatively brilliant idea wasn't it?
"Someone had the presence of mind to go to number eight's front door to knock on it and when Sadie Hartley opened the door, somebody plunged the stun gun into her face effectively, you will agree with that?
"And then that person, I suggest to you had the presence of mind and cool mentality to step inside and close that door while Sadie Hartley was shocked - literally and figuratively by the stun gun and the presence of you, that's the truth.
"Someone closed the door and set about the unfortunate woman with the knife and that was you wasn't it, and your feral temper took over. The woman who thwarted you, staying with the man you adored, paid the penalty didn't she? 'Don't f*** with me or you will suffer'."
Williams responded: "I'm sure she did suffer but not at my hands."
Mr McDermott added: "You got blood on you. You coolly left her dead or lying dying on the floor in your size 10 boots that you say you inadvertently left at Kit's house."
He reminded jurors that Ms Hartley had suffered 41 stab or slash wounds and that the person who had committed the crime had been "indulging in savagery".
Williams agreed with the prosecutor adding: "The attack was savage."
But she continued: "I have absolutely no idea who it is. I have not done it, I'm not capable of this."
The court was told that Williams then called Walsh to tell her to meet her at a car park in Ellesmere Port where the Clio car was "dumped".
More CCTV was played to the court showing two figures carrying items.
Mr McDermott went on : "That's you and Kit coming back from the murder with the outdoor clothes, the boots, the knife, then stun gun, some towels used to wipe the Clio down."
Again Williams responded: "It's not me coming back."
"That's you coming back with Kit and the first thing you do is let the dog out. You weren't in bed in this period you were committing a murder in Sunny Bank Road weren't you?"
Williams, of Treborth Road, Blacon, Chester, and Walsh, of Hare Lane, Chester, both deny murder.
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