Gemma Watts, 49, has been jailed along with Steve Sansom, for killing Sarah Mayhew, 38, in south London with a court hearing depraved messages the pair sent to each other
A murderer told her accomplice how she fantasised about dead babies “twisted and broken”, a court heard.
Gemma Watts, 49, has been jailed along with Steve Sansom, for killing Sarah Mayhew, 38, and dumping her remains in Rowdown Fields, New Addington, south London, last spring. She and Sansom admitted murder and perverting the course of justice by dismembering Ms Mayhew’s body, distributing the parts at “various locations” and cleaning up the scene, the Old Bailey heard. Sansom was out of prison on life licence for another murder
Mrs Justice Cutts sentenced Sansom to life imprisonment for murder with a whole life order, which means he will never be released from prison. Watts held back tears as she was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 30 years. If she is ever released, she will spend the rest of her life on licence.
It is believed Ms Mayhew must have been killed or incapacitated inside Sansom’s flat on the night of March 8 to 9 2024 and, given the messages sent between the defendants in the months before, “it is not credible to conclude that she was killed immediately,” prosecutor Tom Little KC said.
He told the court that the pair would exchange disturbing messages and he read out one where Watts got pleasure from seeing dead babies. “Why do i walk round now looking at people different, little kids look different, babies all people I see them and picture how they would look begging for life, or cute little clothes torn and little limbs covered in blood …. twisted and broken,” read a message from Watts.
She then said it makes her feel “horny, powerful hungry for it, different to everyone else”. In another voice note played to the court, Sansom says: “I love how you are. I love how f***ed up we both are.”
Sansom, of Sutton, south-west London, and Watts, of New Addington, sat quietly in the dock as details of their “kinky” sexual relationship – including a stream of messages between them about bestiality, humiliation and causing hurt – were outlined at their sentencing hearing.
Mr Little also told the court: “The defendants acting together conducted the planned and premeditated bloodthirsty murder of Sarah Mayhew. It is a murder which the prosecution submit involved sexual and/or sadistic conduct. Having committed the murder they then made very extensive efforts to pervert the course of justice over a number of days.
“Prior to the murder, the defendants had exchanged a range of depraved messages including those indicating a desire on their part to kill victims whilst involved in sexual activity with them, with a knife or knives, and then have sex with each other whilst covered in the blood of the victim and they even discussed eating human flesh but we do not suggest they did so.”
Ms Mayhew, who lived in New Addington, was never seen again after she joined Sansom, whom she had met years before on a dating site, at his ground floor flat in Sutton at about 11pm on March 8 2024. Watts was already at the property. Ms Mayhew’s head and limbs were found more than eight miles away in Rowdown Field in New Addington, just over three weeks later on April 2 2024.
Her torso was discovered much later in the River Wandle and some pieces of evidence were destroyed or disposed of by the defendants, the court heard. The judge said both defendants were “equally involved” in the plan to lure Ms Mayhew to Sansom’s flat, adding: “You had lured Sarah to the flat for depraved and violent sexual activity during which she was to be killed.
“Her fear and suffering must have been acute as she realised why she was there and what was happening.” The judge added: “She was an innocent woman, lured to that flat to die in order that you both could act out your blood thirsty and wicked fantasy.”