Chilling footage shows now-convicted killer Michael Stirling giving a “no comment” interview one day after the body of his murdered lover was discovered in a shallow grave.
The 32-year-old, who has now been jailed for life, can be seen slouching in his chair as he refuses to answer any questions about the death of his lover Samantha Eastwood.
A detective asks Stirling directly if he killed Miss Eastwood, whose body was found eight days after she disappeared.
However, he repeatedly refuses to give police any information.
The detective said: “You may have made some very, very bad decisions over the last few days, Michael, but I encourage you to make the right decision this afternoon.
“You were at [Miss Eastwood’s] house on Friday, witnesses have heard a female screaming. Through a process of investigation we have identified that property as being number two and that number is the address off Samantha Eastwood.
"A matter of days later we found her buried in a shallow grave on Tickhill Lane. What have you done to Samantha?”
Stirling, slouched with hands on his lap, replies: “No comment.”
The 28-year-old’s body was discovered one day before Stirling’s police interview in a shallow grave at Caverswall, Stoke-on-Trent, wrapped in a duvet with tape around her eyes and face.
The midwife was reported missing by concerned colleagues on July 27 after she failed to show up for a night shift at Royal Stoke University Hospital.
Stirling, who is the brother-in-law of the victim’s former fiancé John Peake, was jailed at Stafford Crown Court on Monday as Miss Eastwood’s family watched from the gallery.
The landscape gardener pleaded guilty to murdering Miss Eastwood at a hearing in October.
His barrister Charles Miskin QC told the judge then that the killing had not been premeditated, but had followed a period of “growing tension” between the couple.
Stirling flew into an “intense rage” in July, suffocating and strangling his lover before “panicking” and burying Miss Eastwood’s body as a disused quarry.
He tried to cover his tracks by duping her family with text messages sent from Miss Eastwood’s phone and pretending to help in searches for her after the alarm was raised.
