A woman went to terrifying lengths to conceal her web of lies after brutally murdering her husband of 27 years and burying his remains in their back garden.
Last month, Maureen Rickards was charged with the murder of her frail and beaten husband Jeremy Rickards, 65, whose body was found behind their terraced home in Canterbury, Kent, on July 11, 2024, six days after his daughter reported him missing. She has now been given a life sentence, of which she must serve a minimum of 22 years.
Police believe Rickards, who subjected Jeremy to a horrific campaign of abuse prior to his death, murdered him on or around June 9 at the rented property they shared with four other tenants. After stabbing Jeremy in the chest and heart, Rickards, 50, removed his clothes, leaving him in just his underwear. She then stored his body inside her cupboard for several days in her cluttered bedroom, stuffed with piles of clothes, make-up and rubbish. After officers conducted a search of the property, they remarked that the bedroom, which resembled a hoarder’s stash house, “smelt of death”.
In order to access the bedroom, which overlooked the garden where she would eventually conceal Jeremy’s body, Rickards would have had to climb two narrow flights of stairs covered in a black-speckled carpet.
One housemate Danny Matcham, recalled he heard “bumping” noises before spotting Rickards in the garden, Mail Online reports, which meant she would have dragged her husband’s body down at least thirty stairs before burying him in a bag underneath some grass cuttings.
James Fisher, senior crown prosecutor at the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), told BBC News how investigators had to unpick a “web of lies” spun by Rickards, who was arrested after she messaged the couple’s daughter, Chima Rickards, using Jeremy’s phone to inform her that he had supposedly arrived in Saudi Arabia, where he was working.
However, Chima quickly grew concerned about the style of messages and enquired whether it was her mother using her father’s phone. Canterbury Crown Court also heard how Rickards had message herself from her late husband’s phone, telling her he’d gone to Saudi Arabia.
She then changed her story completely, messaging her daughter to claim Jeremy had died by suicide. The message read: “Jeremy is dead. He took his own life… there were witnesses. I was asleep.” In response, Chima messaged Jeremy, writing: “Mum said last night, before I had to block her again, that you’re dead and you killed yourself. So I don’t know if this is really you or just her having taken over your phone again.”
Mr Fisher described how Chima had found the messages, which were not written using Jeremy’s usual wording, “very strange”. It was at this point that she reported him missing. By the time authorities recovered Jeremy’s phone, the suspicious messages had been deleted.
Kent Police stated that an analysis of Jeremy’s phone showed he last topped it up on June 8, 2024, the last record of his being alive. While the missing person investigation was underway, deceitful Rickards used Jeremy’s bank cards to buy a number of items, including Vanish carpet shampoo, Febreze air freshener and stain remover, with the purchases made between June 20 and June 30.
Chillingly, eight days after Jeremy was reported missing, Rickards uploaded a video to YouTube, giving followers a tour of the garden where, unbeknown to them, her husband had been buried. The clip shows Rickards zooming in on a pile of dry grass, which was concealing Jeremy’s remains, before telling followers: “Hubby is always travelling, so I’m all alone.”
Rickards was arrested for fraud on July 11. It was then that, as officers conducted a search of the property, they made a terrible discovery in the garden. Kent Police told how Jeremy’s body was found with five stab wounds to the chest, as well as non-fatal injuries he had suffered approximately 10 days before his death. There were also other injuries, believed to have been inflicted at least five weeks earlier.
It was at this point that Rickards was arrested on suspicion of murder, with officers launching a homicide investigation. Evil Rickards attempted to claim that Jeremy had sustained his injuries during a car accident and, during cross-examination, she told jurors she was being “set up”. The murderer said: “Something scary is going on. This is spooky, this is scary.”
While working to establish a picture of the couple’s relationship in the weeks and months before Jeremy’s death, police discovered he’d been seen with bruising to his face in a Canterbury pub, where he’d told a staff member he’d been involved in a car accident.
Video clips found on Rickards’ phone, dating from the end of May and the start of June, showed her shouting at Jeremy, and the sounds of her beating him could be heard, Kent Police said. Officers added that Jeremy had briefly moved out of the property in early June and “had been seen with numerous injuries at the property he stayed in.”
Following her conviction last month, senior investigating officer Detective Inspector Colin McKeen said: “This was a horrific murder of a man who we believe had been a supportive husband to his wife, despite her violence towards him. Sadly, our investigation suggests that, rather than being a one-off incident, Maureen Rickards had attacked her husband on a number of occasions before this fatal assault.
“She has never expressed any remorse for what she did and has repeatedly sought to frustrate the investigation and push blame onto others, including the victim himself. The jury has seen through her lies, and she will now spend many years in prison.
“This case shows that domestic abuse, whether committed by a man or a woman, can escalate and become fatal and I urge anyone who is experiencing violence at the hands of their partner to report it to the police. We will listen to you, support you, and take action to protect you from harm.”
Do you have a story to share? Email me at julia.banim@reachplc.com
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