Man kills wife on wedding night, stuffs body in suitcase before dumping it

A UK man, Thomas Nutt, has been found guilty of murdering his wife, Dawn Walker, on their wedding night. He has been sentenced to a minimum of 21 years in prison by a local court.

The cruel incident took place last year in October at the couple's house in Lightcliffe, West Yorkshire. Dawn Walker's body was found stuffed in a suitcase near their house.

Bradford crown court heard that Nutt killed Walker by strangling her to death. He stuffed her body in a cupboard before dumping it in bushes behind their house, per a report in The Guardian.

Nutt then called the police and said that his wife had gone missing. He claimed that they had been on a two-day caravan honeymoon in a layby in Skegness and that she went missing after they came back. Her body was found four days after she married him on October 27 last year.

Nutt "desecrated" her body by breaking bones so it could fit into the suitcase, said Judge Jonathan Rose. He claimed that she had been suffering from mental health issues and even sent messages to her family from her phone after murdering her.

A medical examination of her body revealed that she had suffered significant neck injuries caused by a "forceful application of pressure to her neck." During the trial, Nutt admitted to manslaughter claiming that he "did not intend" to kill his wife.

"We came back and she has got bipolar and is depressed, said she wanted to get divorced," he told the police.

"She put me in jail before, said I had tried raping and assaulting her. Said she was going to do it again. She started screaming and I have hit her in the face and put my arm round her neck," he added.

The jury was also shown CCTV footage of Nutt taking a large suitcase out of the house. It only took them three hours of deliberations to pass the verdict against him.

During sentencing, Judge Rose told Nutt: "Dawn Walker died because you are a bully, used to getting your own way with women, used to controlling and manipulating women and used to using your considerable size advantage to inflict violence on women if you considered it necessary to do so."