Kim Edwards - The Twilight Murders

By Katherine Smith

In April 2016, the unassuming town of Spalding in Lincolnshire earned an unwelcome place in true crime history when it turned out to be the home of Britain's youngest ever double killers. The victims were a forty-nine year-old mother named Elizabeth Edwards and her thirteen year-old daughter Katie. They were stabbed in the throat and then suffocated with pillows as they lay in their beds at night. These awful murders were unspeakably brutal and harrowing.

 

The mastermind of the murders was Kim Edwards. Kim was the middle daughter of Elizabeth and the older sister of Katie. She had not acted alone in these evil and gruesome crimes. Her loyal boyfriend Lucas Markham had been more than willing to kill these family members for her. It was shocking enough that someone would plan and carry out the violent premeditated murder of their mother and little sister but most shocking of all was the tender age of these killers. Kim Edwards and Lucas Markham were both just fourteen years-old. They were still kids.

 

Once they satisfied themselves that Elizabeth and Katie were dead, Kim Edwards and Lucas Markham eventually went downstairs where they ate ice cream and watched four Twilight movies. It was this last strange and shocking detail that would not only give these two teen killers their true crime tag (The TWILIGHT Killers) but also become the most chilling revelation in court. What sort of person stabs a mother and a little girl to death in the throat and then eats ice cream and watches DVDs as if nothing has happened? Kim Edwards and Lucas Markham did though. It was utterly and completely beyond all comprehension.

 

How do you even begin to understand what happened on that tragic day in 2016?

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookRix
• Release date: Jul 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9783755446637

Book preview

Copyright

© Copyright 2023 Katherine Smith

All Rights Reserved

Contents

Introduction

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

References

Photo Credit

INTRODUCTION

Spalding is a market town on the River Welland in the South Holland district of Lincolnshire. It has a population of around 34,000 and sits between the cities of Peterborough and Lincoln. Spalding is famous for its agricultural industry and also tulips. The Spalding Tulip Parade was a big deal in the town once upon a time and attracted thousands of visitors. In April 2016, this unassuming town earned an unwelcome place in true crime history when it turned out to be the home of Britain's youngest ever double killers.

The victims were a forty-nine year-old mother named Elizabeth Edwards and her thirteen year-old daughter Katie. They were repeatedly stabbed in the throat and then suffocated with pillows as they lay in their beds at night. These awful murders were unspeakably brutal and harrowing. Even veteran police officers were shaken by this case. The mastermind of the murders was Kim Edwards. Kim was the middle daughter of Elizabeth and the older sister of Katie. She had not acted alone in these evil and gruesome crimes. Her loyal boyfriend Lucas Markham had been more than willing to kill these family members for her. Kim Edwards and Lucas Markham were a terrible and disturbing influence on one another. They now stand in the notorious and dreadful pantheon of killer crime duos.

Kim watched her mother's life slip away and then took refuge in the bathroom while she waited for Markham to murder her little sister Katie. Kim was supposed to kill Katie herself but she became squeamish. Kim Edwards said she didn't like the smell of blood. Despite this, Kim had still given explicit instructions that Markham should stab the voice-boxes in the throats of her mother and sister to avoid any risk of Elizabeth and Katie calling for help. So this is exactly what Lucas Markham did. If Kim Edwards had told him to walk off a cliff then Markham would have done that too. Markham would do literally anything for Kim. All she had to do was ask.

It was shocking enough that someone would plan and carry out the violent premeditated murder of their mother and little sister but most shocking of all was the tender age of these killers. Kim Edwards and Lucas Markham were both just fourteen years-old. They were still kids. Once they satisfied themselves that Elizabeth and Katie were dead (the blood drenched bedrooms were ample evidence alone - never mind checking for a pulse), Kim Edwards and Lucas Markham went downstairs - where they eventually ate ice cream and watched four Twilight movies.

It was this last strange and shocking detail that would not only give these two teen killers their true crime tag (The TWILIGHT Killers) but also become the most chilling revelation in court. What sort of person stabs a mother and a little girl to death in the throat and then eats ice cream and watches DVDs as if nothing has happened? Kim Edwards and Lucas Markham did though. It was utterly and completely beyond all comprehension. How do you even begin to understand what happened on that tragic day in 2016?

In the book that follows we will attempt to make some sense of this strange and tragic case and see how Kim Edwards, in conjunction with Lucas Markham, tipped over into what one can only describe as complete insanity. There are only a handful of killers in British criminal history who were younger than Kim Edwards and Lucas Markham were when they murdered Elizabeth and Katie. Their youth alone made these crimes shocking but the nature of the murders and the behaviour of the two teenagers afterwards was something which bewildered and baffled the police. This case was not quite without precedent but it certainly felt like it.

Once in custody, Kim Edwards and Lucas Markham spoke of the murders in bland, unemotional, almost bored fashion. They didn't even seem to think that they had done anything wrong. Worst of all was the fact that Kim Edwards and Lucas Markham didn't seem to care. They displayed no remorse or regret at all. Can these infamous callous kids ever be rehabilitated? Can they change? This is a question we will examine in the book as we go through this harrowing and sad story. This book is, I hope, a respectful and sensitive account of this case though - unavoidably - some of the details will be disturbing. A list of salient references used in the research of this book can be found at the conclusion of the final chapter.

CHAPTER ONE

Elizabeth Edwards was born Elizabeth Joyce and originally from Edinburgh but she moved south in the end. Her friends (of whom there were many) always called her Liz. She married a welder named Pete Edwards who, by all accounts, turned out to have a drug problem and could be violent and abusive. Pete Edwards resurfaced in the wake of this case and although he came across as a rather strange character his grief at the loss of Katie was genuine and heartfelt. Kim and Katie were a result of this marriage but Elizabeth already had an older daughter named Mary - who was the half-sister to Kim and Katie.

Mary Cottingham lived in Derby with her husband and children when the tragic 2016 murders took place and was twenty-six at the time. Mary was a decent and intelligent person who always suspected her half-sister Kim of being - to quote Mary - 'unhinged'. She turned out to be sadly accurate in this bleak assessment. Unhinged is a word that could have been invented strictly for Kim Edwards. Mary also had no time at all for Kim's unpopular boyfriend Lucas Markham. She sensed he was bad news from day one. As with her sister Kim, Mary's sixth sense was depressingly on the nose once again when it came to Markham.

I knew straight away that there was something I did not like about him, said Mary. I knew he was trouble, I just didn’t realise he would be this extent of trouble. It's safe to say that never in a billion years could anyone have guessed the full extent of the 'trouble' that Markham would wreak on this poor family. Kim Edwards hooking up with Lucas Markham turned out to be a truly tragic and horrific development.

Pete Edwards had left (it was something of a mutual parting of the ways) the family home when Kim was two years-old. Elizabeth would not speak kindly of Pete Edwards in the years which followed and did not want her daughters to have any contact with him. She thought that Pete Edwards was a bad influence on her children. Pete Edwards is therefore what you could describe as a background character in this sad family drama. Elizabeth Edwards sometimes had to shuttle herself and her children around women's refuges to find sanctuary from her lingering and allegedly violent estranged husband. It was certainly not an easy time for Elizabeth what with young children to look after and little money.

Kim Rose Edwards was born in 2001. Despite the fact that everyone (including Mary) said that Pete Edwards was an awful person, Kim developed a fantasy version of her dad in her head. She felt as if her mother had denied her the chance to know this loving father who would have doted on her. Kim always believed that her younger sister Katie was favoured over her by Elizabeth. Kim therefore had this fantasy where her father was a great person and would favour her over Katie - just to even things up. None of this was true. It was all simply a figment of Kim's troubled and paranoid imagination.

Elizabeth loved both Kim and Katie equally. And life with Kim's father in the family home had clearly been the complete opposite of a bed of roses. Kim's reality was built on a series of delusions and she patently had a deeply selfish narcissistic personality. Kim was the sort of person who would happily pull the plug on the entire world if she thought it might buy her twenty minutes of modest contentment. She never considered the welfare and feelings of others. It was always all about her. The fact that Kim grew-up without her father made it easier to think of him through a rose-coloured mindset. Had he lived with them all the time then this most likely wouldn't have been the case.

Lucas Markham had an equally troubled start in life when it came to his family. He was also born in 2001. His real name was Stan Lucas Markham but he clearly didn't care much for the name Stan. Markham's mother died from cancer at the age of 29 when he was about five. This was obviously a dreadful, painful, and confusing experience for a young child. There was domestic abuse in the family and his father (who came from the travelling community) was known to drink. Lucas Markham therefore experienced a lot of turmoil and instability in his early years. Markham had some foster care placements before living with his aunt and brothers in Spalding.

Because he was loaned out to various relatives when he was younger, Lucas Markham always felt somewhat unwanted (though his long suffering aunt clearly cared about him by all accounts - despite all the trouble and aggravation he caused). A former neighbour of Lucas Markham's family said that even as a little kid he was something of a vandal and swore like a trooper. Markham at eleven years-old would be seen riding his bike around outside at midnight when kids his age were supposed to be in bed. Lucas Markham eventually lived at the far opposite end of Kim Edwards’ street and went to the same school.

It was a very cruel twist of fate to place these two young people in such close proximity. If they had never met then the awful events of 2016 would never have happened. It is hard to believe that Kim Edwards would ever have found anyone else willing to get their hands bloody for her in the grim and unflinching fashion that Markham did. Given that it was the teenage love affair between Kim Edwards and Markham which acted as the catalyst for the murders then it seems safe to say that Elizabeth and Katie would not have died if Kim and Markham had never met in the first place.

Kim Edwards had a difficult and sometimes fractious relationship with her mother - even before Lucas Markham arrived on the scene. The tension between Kim and Elizabeth had a long history. Elizabeth shopped herself to social services in 2008 when she hit Kim during a row at home. This was not just a tap either. She is said to have punched Kim in the jaw - which was obviously out of order and not something anyone should ever do to a child. Elizabeth just completely snapped and lashed out. Kim was six at the time and the row was over a broken television. Kim was temporarily (for four months) taken into foster care as a consequence.

This experience had a profound effect on the psyche of Kim Edwards. Kim would sometimes even yearn for the foster mother she briefly knew during this time. Kim would act as if she was treated like some ostracised interloper or stranger in her own family but this wasn't the case at all. As with nearly everything, it was all in Kim's mind. Elizabeth Edwards believed that she was never quite able to repair her relationship with Kim after this regrettable 2008 incident. That punch was something that Kim never forget. It left deep mental scars. Friends of Elizabeth though would later say they never detected any friction or hostility (though there was clearly friction behind the scenes at times) between her and Kim and they always seemed like a normal mother and daughter.

In photographs taken of the family together when Kim was younger they all seem content and happy. Kim doesn't look like someone who is dangerously estranged from her family. The only real giveaway is that Kim doesn't have the ability to smile in a genuine way like her younger sister. A smile was always hard work for Kim Edwards. Kim desperately tried to cast her mother as the grand villain in her story and while Elizabeth had not always been perfect she was a loving and dedicated single parent who volunteered in a charity shop and sang in the church choir. In reality, Elizabeth was assuredly not the villain and wicked mother portrayed by the troubled imagination of Kim Edwards. Apart from Kim, no one ever had a bad word to say about Elizabeth Edwards.

Elizabeth took Kim and Katie to pantomimes when they were little kids. She did her best to make their childhood fun and normal after a difficult start. She also tried to instil a sense of community and decency in her daughters. As a consequence, Kim and Katie were both involved in the church and even volunteers in a Safer Neighbourhoods scheme designed to combat anti-social behaviour. The thought of little Kim Edwards doing her bit to combat crime and anti-social behaviour is darkly ironic to say the least in retrospect. Kim would eventually become one of the most notorious teenage criminals in British true crime history. She would be compared to monsters like Myra Hindley.

After an unavoidably transient interlude, Elizabeth Edwards settled in Spalding with her daughters. Spalding had one of the lowest crime rates in the country and was surrounded by tranquil countryside and waterways. It had good public services and excellent flood defences. All in all, it seemed as good a place as any for Elizabeth to finally set down some roots. By the time of the Twilight murders, Elizabeth had been living in Spalding for about ten years.

Elizabeth worked as a dinner lady at the local St Paul's primary school. The kids at the school all liked Elizabeth Edwards and she became a familiar figure in their lives. The staff at the school said that Elizabeth was a bubbly and enthusiastic sort of person who was always pleasant to be around. Elizabeth Edwards was a positive person. She was an optimist. Elizabeth always did her utmost in life to make the best of the modest cards that had been dealt to her. Because she was a mother of three, Elizabeth was excellent with children at the school. She loved working in an environment full of children and would look out for them as if they were her own flesh and blood.

The Edwards family lived in a little two up/two down semi-detached house on Dawson Avenue. Kim and Katie shared a bedroom. Their house was number 5. The lightish brown bricked house had a tiny patch of neatly mowed grass at the front and not much of a back garden. A row of terraced houses sat beyond in the background and Dawson Avenue was lined with semi-detached houses identical to the one the Edwards family lived in. It was a nondescript place to live and not the sort of place you'd find anyone with wealth. The community spirit was good though and Elizabeth became friends with many of her neighbours. No one could ever have predicted what would