A “coward” chased a man he wrongly suspected of smashing his mother’s window down an alleyway then cornered him and stabbed him to death. Jamie Scott Mitchell, 25, has been convicted of murder after running from his mother’s home carrying a kitchen knife and confronting Steven Wilkinson then plunging the weapon into his body.
Killer Mitchell had been at his mother’s home when he heard a window smash and went out to try and find the person responsible. He claimed he only intended to scare them, NorthWalesLive reports.
He came across Mr Wilkinson – who had nothing to do with the window being broken – on waste ground during the incident on October 4 last year. A jury at Mold Crown Court heard Mitchell chased Mr Wilkinson into a blocked alleyway at the Jubilee Court complex in Buckley, Flintshire.
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Mitchell insisted the men had simply “collided” with each other but Mr Wilkinson sustained a six-to-seven-inch stab wound to his chest under his left armpit. The jury of nine men and three women deliberated for two hours and 54 minutes before returning a unanimous verdict of guilty to the count of murder, which Mitchell had denied.
Judge Rhys Rowlands told him: “You have been convicted on really quite the most compelling evidence of the murder of a young man Steven Wilkinson who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was unarmed when he was chased and cornered by you in that alleyway off Jubilee Court. He has lost his life in a cowardly attack.” The judge added: “It is yet another example I’m afraid of a tragedy that can happen when inadequate young men – such as yourself – take knives out onto our streets.”
He told a shocked-looking Mitchell, who was wearing a white shirt and a tie, that he faces a life sentence but the minimum term depends on issues such as victim impact statements. People in the public gallery shouted “yes” at the verdict and burst into applause on hearing the words “life sentence”.
The jury had heard that Mark Wright, an emergency medical technician, had arrived at the scene in Buckley at 10.34pm that night to the sound of “shouting and screaming” from onlookers with one crew of medics already there.
There were “desperate” attempts to stem the bleeding as chest compressions were carried out. Mr Wilkinson was taken to Wrexham Maelor Hospital’s A&E department. But the patient succumbed to his injuries and he was pronounced dead there at 11.43pm that night.
During the trial witness Jess Wilkinson – the victim’s sister, who was seeing Mitchell – said that after the window had been smashed at Mitchell’s mother’s home he had left and she had hid in a bedroom. Later she heard the front door bang loudly and the sound of metal on metal, which a jury heard was Mitchell dropping the knife into a sink downstairs.
She said Mitchell’s mum asked the defendant: “What have you done?” and Mitchell came up to the bedroom “shaking and looking as if he had just seen a ghost”. He told Miss Wilkinson he had stabbed her brother.
The defence case was that Mitchell had been awoken by Ms Wilkinson to hear his mum “panicking and distressed” after a rock came through the window. She said she had been called a “grass”. Mitchell claimed he picked up the kitchen knife and took it with him in case the rock throwers were armed. He had it in his tracksuit trousers but took it out as it made running easier as he searched for the culprits, he said. The person responsible for breaking the window has been dealt with by the court and there is no suggestion Mr Wilkinson knew anything about it. Mitchell, of Lexham Green Close, Buckley, will be sentenced on Thursday, May 4.
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