The triple murderer Jed Allen wrote “I’m sorry” in blood on his bedroom wall after stabbing his half-sister, his mother and her partner to death, an inquest has heard.
However, the Oxfordshire coroner, Darren Salter, said there had been no red flags to indicate what the 21-year-old intended to do and no clear motive had emerged for the killings on 23 May.
Detectives launched a manhunt for Allen, a former groundskeeper at Oxford University, after the bodies of Janet Jordon, 48, Philip Howard, 44, and their six-year-old daughter, Derin, were found at their home in Didcot.
Armed officers spent two days combing the countryside to find Allen. But dog walkers eventually found him, 36 hours after the killings, hanged in woodland in Oxford.
Postmortems on the three murder victims found they had all suffered “unsurvivable” multiple knife wounds and had defensive injuries consistent with a struggle. All three were killed with the same hunting knife.
Jordon had struggled with mental health problems since she was 11, the coroner heard, had alcohol misuse problems and was undergoing treatment for heroin addiction at the time of her death.
Toxicology tests found heroin in her system along with methadone. Howard, who had been her partner for about 10 years, also appeared to have recently started using the drug. He had been kicked out of the family home in the weeks before the attacks.
Allen was believed to have struggled with his mother’s addictions, which he sometimes had to fund financially, and found it difficult to come to terms with the fact that two of his siblings had been taken into care before the birth of Derin.
Yet he had a good relationship with his mother and loved his sister, who he would pick up from All Saints primary school in Didcot, family friend Mary Dennis said.
However, he suffered from low self-esteem, which he attempted to address through gym and bodybuilding training, and previously told a friend that he “effing hated life”, the court heard. A close friend, Philip Webber, said Allen was a “bit of a strange bloke”, but that was what he liked him for.
Det Sgt Ali Driver, of Thames Valley police, told the hearing the case had been closed as there was no evidence anyone else had been involved in the killings.
He said Allen had experienced difficulties in his life and self-esteem issues that he had spoken to friends about. Allen had likely knifed his three victims after an argument, before cleaning himself up and fleeing to Oxford, Driver said.
Salter said there had been nothing in Allen’s behaviour that day or earlier to indicate why the deaths had occurred. He added: “One might speculate that Allen was not of sound mind, but having said that there was no sign of mental health difficulties in the time leading up to the deaths occurring. There were certainly no red flags, no warning signs of what was to occur.”
He recorded a conclusion of unlawful killing for Howard, Jordon and Derin. The inquest into Allen’s death continues.
