A serial killer-obsessed woman has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 23 years for stabbing her on-off boyfriend to death.
Shay Groves, 27, was convicted at Winchester Crown Court of slitting the throat of Frankie Fitzgerald, 25, before stabbing him 17 times in the chest in July last year after trying to portray herself as his victim.
Groves had framed pictures of serial killers on her walls, collected books about gangsters, including the notorious prisoner Charles Bronson, and watched true crime documentaries.
The five-week trial heard that Groves tried to portray herself as a victim of Mr Fitzgerald’s sexual violence and used tips from true crime documentaries to plan her alibi.
In his sentencing remarks, Mr Justice Kerr told Groves that she had “blighted” the lives of Mr Fitzgerald’s family “for decades to come”.
“You have robbed Frankie’s family and loved ones of their son and their brother, and his two children of their father.”
During the trial, Steven Perian, prosecuting, told the jury that Groves acted out of jealousy after she found that her victim had been messaging a 13-year-old girl on Facebook.
He said: “It is very likely she was obsessed with Frankie Fitzgerald because of his performance in the bedroom.
“The killing of Frankie Fitzgerald is very likely to be a crime of passion driven by her jealousy.”
The pair shared a mutual interest in BDSM and a camera was set up in the defendant’s bedroom at her home in Havant, Hampshire, to record them having sex.
She sent the friend videos of the pair having sex edited to appear as rape but the prosecution say the original footage showed that it was consensual sex.
