Every third day, in our #EveryThreeDays campaign, I write about a woman killed by a man. Previously in this campaign, which started on the 2nd of May 2021, I have remembered 100 women, the last being Robyn Browne, a trans woman who lived in London – the murderer brought to justice after leaving his DNA.
Today we remember Caroline Andrews, 52, who was killed on the 3rd of February 2015.
An IT consultant has been jailed for life for murdering his school teacher wife in a brutal attack that set off a bizarre chain of events.
Stuart Andrews, 54, was arrested after the body of 52-year-old Caroline Andrews was found at their rented bungalow in The Street, Benenden, on the 4th of February. A post-mortem examination revealed she had been strangled the previous day.
Andrews admitted murder and was jailed for life at Maidstone Crown Court with a minimum of 15 years. He also admitted stealing £267,096 from his 95-year-old father-in-law, who suffers from dementia. The Oxford graduate’s arrest followed a massive 24-hour manhunt, leading to dozens of armed police boarding a train at Gillingham station.
The court heard in the hours after strangling his wife, depressed and debt-ridden Andrews checked into a hotel in London with a woman he was planning to set up an escort agency with. After ordering a Martini he fell asleep. The next day hotel staff went to his room and found him covered in blood from numerous knife wounds where he had tried to kill himself.
Prosecutor Philip Bennetts QC said Andrews told paramedics: “I’ve done something really bad. I’ve killed my wife.”
He had left behind a note in his car which read:
“Dear children, I’ve done a horrendous thing and I can’t expect you to understand. It started as an accident when we were fighting but it went too far. Your mother was a beautiful, kind and caring person who loved you all. I let her down and ruined her life by being stupid with money and losing the house. Neither of us ever recovered from that. I love you too but I can’t carry on living. All this is just my fault.
Dad.”
Caroline Andrews
#EveryThreeDays
