By Grâçia Ada Obi
Man has been jailed for life after strangling his girlfriend to death.
Kieron Goodwin, 33, murdered Olivia Wood, 29, in Frome, Somerset, United Kingdom (UK) last July after a short but violent relationship.
He was found guilty of a total of 16 offences against Olivia and three other women who survived his reign of terror.
Goodwin subjected Olivia to a campaign of physical and psychological abuse over a three-month period.
During their relationship he:
– Threatened to harm himself, forcing Oliva to take time off work
– Sent WhatsApp messages pressuring her into sex with another man
– Took £6,000 from her to buy cocaine
He has now been jailed for a minimum of 35 years after a trial.
After the sentencing, Olivia’s mum Astrid said: ‘Olivia could disarm you with her wit, her beauty and her winning smile.
“Olivia had a laugh you could hear from anywhere in the house. Olivia was the glue that held our family together.’
She called Goodwin an ‘unspeakably evil man’, saying: ‘He is an egocentric, sadistic beast. A morally deprived psychopath.’
Goodwin called 999 in the early hours of July 30, 2024, reporting that Olivia was not breathing. She died in hospital a short time later and Goodwin was arrested.
However, Police found bags filled with her clothes, indicating that she was planning to leave him.
He was also found to have committed crimes against three other women, who he plied with drugs then threatened with compromising pictures to get them to hand over tens of thousands of pounds.
All three survivors gave statements about the impact he had on their lives.
One said: ‘It pains me to know what he is capable of. It pains me to know that I am alive and the other person is not. He is not remorseful or sorry.
‘He is only sorry he got caught and the idea that he can go back into the world in the future to hurt me and others is something that I cannot bear.’
One of Olivia’s sisters, Soscha Seymour, said he had traumatised her family with a trial and trying to trash her reputation.
She said: ‘He instead chose cowardice and a disgusting, misogynistic assassination of Olivia’s character in an attempt to weasel out of the vile actions he has committed.
‘Not only has her life been taken by this monster, but her reputation too.
‘I want this to be my opportunity to say loud and clear that Olivia was not this person and her memory does not deserve to be tarnished by the allegations made during this trial.’
Judge Martin Picton had equally strong words for him, telling him: ‘You are a highly manipulative, determined, misogynistic, selfish, narcissistic and thoroughly evil individual.
‘The term “evil” is not a superlative to useg lightly, but in your case it is thoroughly deserved. The evidence revealed you to be a master manipulator.
‘You were the perfect storm for Olivia and to a lesser or greater extent for all of your victims – a perfect storm of emotional, physical, financial and sexual abuse against which background you chose to exercise the control you wielded so as to cause your victims to take ever greater quantities of Class A drugs and to engage in ever more extreme non-consensual acts.
‘You are thoroughly devious and manipulative as I have already identified. Any woman coming under your influence will, in my judgment, be at very great risk of harm from you.
‘You are not to be trusted or taken at face value.’
