A man was fatally stabbed 15 times after his ex-girlfriend arranged for him to be killed in a graveyard - just hours after a row in which she accused him of getting her pregnant, a jury heard.
Lee Gillespie was killed outside High Wycombe’s All Saints Church after he tripped when three people allegedly confronted him on August 22.
The 26-year-old suffered 15 stab wounds to his chest, head and upper limbs, which the court heard were “delivered with great force”, according to MailOnline.
The prosecution told a jury at Reading Crown Court that Mr Gillespie’s former partner, Jodie Willis, 36, of Beaconsfield, had arranged the killing over the “bitterness and resentment” she felt about a “partner swap”.
Mr Gillespie began a new relationship with Lea Sinclair, who had a previous relationship with Nick Baker – a man living with Willis at the time.
Willis had ordered another of her former partners, Martin Stanislaus, 38, of Ealing, London - the actual father of her unborn child - to kill Mr Gillespie, the court was told.
The court heard Stanislaus travelled - armed with a knife - from his home in west London to the home of Willis and Burns in High Wycombe.
Prosecutor Alan Blake told the court the trio visited Miss Sinclair’s home, looking for Mr Gillespie.
Stanislaus allegedly cut open the sofa, accidentally wounding himself and leaving traces of blood and DNA in the property, while Willis’s fingerprints were found on a set of drawers they broke.
After allegedly finding and killing Mr Gillespie, they returned to Willis’s home, where Stanislaus buried his clothes and knife in the garden, said Mr Blake.
All three deny charges of murder and perverting the course of justice after allegedly burying the clothes they were wearing the day Mr Gillespie was killed.
Stanislaus also denies with possessing a blade in a public place.
According to Bucks Free Press, prosecutor Alan Blake told the jury: “While it was Stanislaus who stabbed Lee Gillespie, Jodie Willis and Leigh Burns are indicated as secondary partners to that murder. In other words, they share responsibility for the attack.”
The trial continues.
