The wife of a former soldier who killed his nextdoor neighbours with a ceremonial dagger following a bitter dispute over parking has claimed that he suffered mental health issues after returning from fighting in Afghanistan.
Collin Reeves’ wife, Kayley Reeves, said he told her his head was “not in the right place” and he was particularly struggling on the day of the killings because it was shortly after Remembrance Sunday, a time of year that “triggered” him.
Kayley Reeves said: “He was a royal engineer in the military – a driver with the army. He was in Afghan in 2008-09 but he never talks about it. He bottles it up but he was more agitated when he came back. Just a different Collin from when he went there.
“When he was stressed he would get agitated. He had trouble sleeping, lost interest in all hobbies, stopped seeing friends and family.”
A jury at Bristol crown court has heard that Reeves stabbed his neighbours Jennifer and Stephen Chapple, 33 and 36, at their home in the Somerset village of Norton Fitzwarren as their children slept upstairs.
The attack came after months of wrangling over parking and moments after Kayley Reeves had asked her husband for a trial separation, telling him: “There’s only so many years I can take your shit.”
Reeves, 35, has pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of the Chapples but denies murder on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
In a videotaped police interview given in the days after the killing, Kayley Reeves described how her husband put their daughters to bed on the evening of 21 November last year and then came into their bedroom.
She said they had not been getting along. “He was asking me about my day but I was just ignoring him and telling him to go away.”
Kayley Reeves thought her husband was going outside for a cigarette but she heard screaming. She went downstairs and saw that his “commando dagger”, presented to him when he left the army in 2017, was missing from its frame.
He returned and told her she needed to call the police. “He looked white, not like my Collin. He had blood on his hands. He just said he loves me.”
She added: “It was all such a blur. Police took ages to come. They just took Collin away.” A few weeks before they had a “heart to heart” and he said his head was “not in the right place”. She added: “He asked if he wasn’t here, would I be better off.”
In footage played in court, Reeves could be heard shouting: “Die you fuckers, die” as he carried out what was described as a “brutal and savage” attack.
When booked into custody at the police station he gave his serial number from his military service. He said he was confused and didn’t understand why he was there. The custody sergeant explained he had been arrested on suspicion of murder, to which Reeves replied he was “just doing [his] job” and that “it was an operation”.
The trial continues.
