When a beautiful new mum left her possessive boyfriend, jealousy drove Stephen Devesey to heinous crime...
Striking a match, a young man with spiky black hair carefully lighted some incense sticks and watched as the thin swirls of smoke spiralled upwards. Stephen Devesey, 21, then sat back and waited, as the ground floor of the two-storey Victorian terrace in Whateley Road, Handsworth, Birmingham, was slowly filled with the exotic scent of sandalwood and patchouli.
He was expecting a visitor - not a girlfriend, but a housing association officer - who was looking in at the house where he was living like a squatter surrounded by takeaway debris. And he would soon be giving her an Oscar winning performance.....
Stephen had 'retreated into himself' since his beautiful girlfriend, Nicole Cartmell, 18, a sultry brunette, had called time on their relationship in January 2011. She'd moved back in with her mum, in West Bromwich, three miles away, taking their newborn baby son with her.
In fact, Nicole was missing. Her frantic parents had reported her absence to the police on Valentine's Day, four days after they'd last seen her. No one knew where she was.
No one except for Stephen, whose lips remained firmly sealed....
In fact, February 10 was when Stephen had last seen Nicole.
No one knows why Nicole had turned up at the squalid property but at some point on that Thursday afternoon, Stephen had frightened her so much that she'd made a terrified 999 call from the address. During the call, she could be heard speaking to Stephen - although no one knew it was him at that stage. Six times, she told him that if he unlocked the front door she would put the phone down. Then the call was terminated.
That was the last time anyone other than Stephen heard Nicole's voice.
Trapped, alone in that locked house with him, she pleaded with her psychotic ex to release her, so she could go to her uncle's birthday party. But, by now, she was his prey and she was going nowhere....
Forcing his forearm around her throat, shortly after the 999 call, like a man possessed, Stephen squeezed and pressed until Nicole stopped breathing. If he couldn't have her, then no one else would - not even their baby son. The evil monster suffocated the mother of his child.
Now, with no time for reflection or remorse, Stephen had to think on his feet - and think fast. With Nicole's dead body on the floor beside him, Stephen set to work, prising up the wooden floorboards in the front living room. Underneath was an old cellar - long since bricked up - a seven-feet drop down from the living room.
Cold and calculated, Stephen tipped Nicole's lifeless body into the abyss, crudely covering her corpse with rubbish, a carpet and layers of old clothes. Then he hammered the floorboards back into place.
Nicole had been wearing a green jacket, which he hid in the house. She also had her bag with her, but before hiding that, he callously stole her bank card from her purse.
Now, with Nicole lying dead, seven feet beneath his living room, Stephen embarked on an elaborate charade - played out like an expert. This was when he told the housing association officer that his girlfriend had finished with him. And as he no longer needed the space, he wanted to move to a smaller property.
As Nicole's body slowly rotted, Stephen's brother, James, who sometimes stayed over, complained about a smell in the house - a disgusting stench, like 'rotten meat'. The odour was so horrible, James had even joked that there could be a dead body under the floorboards.
Stephen maintained that the smell was the result of damp and was not amused by James’ joke. In fact he'd looked scared, saying 'don't joke about that’. It was just like the old saying - never a truer word said in jest. Little did James know that his quips had been spot on.
By now, living in one room, Stephen's solution was to light incense to mask the smell of her corpse.
When Nicole’s family first reported her missing, the heartless killer texted her mobile, so that he appeared to be concerned about her. He also lied to Nicole's mother, saying he didn't know where she was.
And three days later, the evil plotter changed his Facebook status from 'engaged' to 'it's complicated,' also flirting with a woman he met on the site and attempting to meet her for sex. Meanwhile, he was trying to find his own escape from the home which now felt like a prison.
It was his own greed that was Stephen’s undoing when he began to withdraw cash using Nicole’s bank card. On one occasion he took out £120.
But the police were watching. After Stephen had used Nicole’s card four times, he was arrested for fraud.
On searching his house, the police found Nicole's jacket, bag and driving licence. They knew she had been wearing the green jacket when she was last seen alive, so they scoured the rest of the property. In the living room, officers noticed a loose floorboard. They lifted it up and made the grisly discovery. Nicole's body had lain there, decomposing, for three weeks.
Soon the house was swarming with police officers in white suits and masks. The 18-year-old's corpse was bagged up and wheeled from the house.
Stephen was arrested on suspicion of murder and initially was taken to a psychiatric unit. But, in police interviews, he made no comment.
He pleaded not guilty to the murder and did not give evidence during the two-week trial at Birmingham Crown Court. He remained emotionless throughout.
Returning a unanimous verdict, the jury decided Stephen was definitely bad, not mad, and found him guilty of Nicole's murder.
Jailing him for a minimum of 17 years, Mrs Justice Thirlwall told him, 'You did not want [Nicole] to leave you and so you made sure that she did not.
'Your son will now have to come to terms with the actions of his father in the first few weeks of his life.'
Nicole's family, who are raising her son, made a statement that said, 'The sentence will never be enough, it will never justify the loss of our beautiful daughter. Her precious baby boy has had his mother taken, an irreplaceable bond has been broken, it has broken our hearts. We hope this will haunt him for ever and a day.'
As for the reason for Stephen's heinous crime - beyond the obvious possessive jealousy - the details remain a mystery. As Detective Sergeant Mick Griffiths, of the Major Investigation Review Team, said, 'Only Stephen Devesy knows why he killed his ex-partner, Nicole Cartmell. The discovery of Nicole's body ignited the worst tragedy any parents could imagine. Now they have asked to be left in peace to grieve and raise the little grandson, who has lost his beautiful mum.
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OTHER CONCEALED CORPSES
1. Bar worker Matthew Roberts, 29, murdered his mother's ex-lover David Heal, 64, in 2004 in Paulton, Somerset, and stuffed his body in a chest freezer. After his arrest, Roberts said he set the freezer to superfreeze, the highest setting, so there would be no smell. The body took six days to thaw before a post mortem could be carried out. Roberts, who pleaded guilty to the murder, was jailed for life, to serve at least 12 years.
2. House of Horrors killer Fred West, 53, was charged with 12 murders, before he killed himself while on remand at Birmingham's Winson Green prison. Police found nine bodies concealed in the Gloucester builder's home - in the garden, cellar and bathroom. Three further bodies were found nearby. In 1995 his wife, Rosemary, was sentenced to life, after being convicted of nine murders at Winchester Crown Court.
3. Serial killer Dennis Nilsen, 67, murdered 15 young men - mainly homosexuals or tramps - between 1978 and 1983. He kept their bodies concealed in his homes - first in Cricklewood and then in Muswell Hill, north London, for varying amounts of time - usually under the floorboards, for 'company.' Guilty of necrophilia (having sex with their corpses) he then dissected them, using butchery skills he'd gained as an army cook, and disposed of their remains by burning them, or flushing them down the loo. He was finally caught when the drains outside his property became choked with human remains and the drain company alerted police.
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