Chilling CCTV footage today revealed the shocking moment a husband dragged his new wife’s corpse from their home in a suitcase – before taking it across a field and dumping it behind a bush, just four days after they married
Powerfully-built ‘bully’ Thomas Nutt, 46, who was today jailed for life with a minimum term of 22 years, punched and then strangled 5ft grandmother Dawn Walker before hiding her in a cupboard at their home.
Bradford Crown Court heard that Nutt, of Lightcliffe, near Halifax, broke her leg so he could fit her corpse into a suitcase – which he later tossed over a fence before hiding it in bushes, where her remains were found.
Nutt lied to her family, blaming her disappearance on her mental health, sent them false texts supposedly from her, and convinced her youngest daughter to help try to find her, all the while knowing she was dead. He had controlled his 52-year-old victim for years and isolated her from members of family, her sister told the court.
A video shows Nutt dragging the wheeled suitcase out of the home he shared with Ms Walker, whose body was inside. He is then seen returning to the garden to try to cover the wheel tracks up in the mud. Her body was later found near a child’s park by neighbours who were searching for Ms Walker after Nutt had reported her missing.
Other CCTV footage released by West Yorkshire Police today following Nutt’s sentencing shows Ms Walker – still in her wedding dress – returning from the pub with her new husband where they had celebrated their nuptials.
This was the last time the mother-of-three was seen alive before Nutt beat and strangled her to death that night on October 27 last year. He told police they had gone on honeymoon to Skegness the next day, but Judge Jonathan Rose said there was no evidence to support that claim, and the judge was sure Ms Walker was already dead.
Sentencing Nutt, the judge told him: ‘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.’
The killer ‘desecrated’ her body by breaking bones to make her fit in the suitcase, the judge said. The victim’s daughter Kiera-Lee Guest said Nutt put up Halloween decorations in the house even while she was lying dead.
Ms Guest said Nutt knew what he had done when she went from place to place with a photograph of her mother, asking if people had seen her. She said: ‘Justice will be served for my beautiful mother.’
Ms Walker’s sister Lisa said Nutt manipulated his victim and isolated her from family for three years ‘before his ungodly hands took her away from us forever’. Lisa Walker told the court: ‘I mourn for my sister who suffered so much and felt like she had nobody to turn to because this man made her feel worthless.’
‘Losing our mother, sister, daughter, nanna and auntie has had a huge impact on our lives.
‘There are no words to describe how it feels for us every single day, waking up knowing what this person did to her, it is truly heart breaking for each and every one of us.
‘We will have to live with his actions for the rest of our lives. Could we have done more to protect her from him?
‘I pray he is never allowed to do this to another family.
‘Today he is finally held accountable for his actions, and he is never allowed to abuse, manipulate or take away the life of another woman.
We would like to thank family and friends for their support during this time but also to the police and prosecution team for helping us fight for justice for Dawn. Please respect our privacy at this time as we process the outcome of today.’
Nutt had admitted manslaughter but was convicted of murder. After the judge imposed a life sentence with a 21-year minimum term, a woman in the public gallery called out: ‘Thank you Your Honour, thank you.’
The trial heard Nutt had even cruelly texted Ms Walker’s daughter from his phone pretending to be his new bride after he had killed her.
When he returned, Nutt tugged the dark rolling bag across a field then tossed it over a fence into bushes.
Nutt contacted police on October 31 to declare Dawn missing, and then carried out a ‘ghastly charade’ of acting like a ‘distraught new husband’, the court was told.
And the court heard he had even joked and laughed with neighbours – who he roped in to help with his search – that he might be held responsible for his wife’s killing.
He even callously celebrated Halloween in the family home with Ms Walker’s daughter and grandson while her body lay stuffed in a cupboard in the house.
But Nutt was brought to justice after the same neighbours discovered Ms Walker’s body in undergrowth – after he was seen making the trip, with the bag, to the back of his home.
Nutt handed himself in but claimed she died during a row after their honeymoon. He said the killing was manslaughter and denied murder, but the jury did not believe him.
In her victim impact statement read to the court today, Ms Guest said: ‘This man took the most beautiful soul. He is the most selfish person I know. What he did to my mum is beyond cruel. He has broken this family but we have the strength to get the justice she deserves.
‘Not only did he beat and abuse her, he disrespected her in so many ways which ended in him taking her life. I think of her last hours or minutes and think about how scared she would have been at this time.
‘He took me and my son looking for her knowing she was dead. I was so worried. He then took me back to the house and I prepared my son lunch in the same spot my mum had been killed so violently.
