Two “sadistic” women who murdered a man with learning disabilities in an attack in which they falsely accused him of being a paedophile have been given life sentences.
Zoe Rider, 36, and Nicola Lethbridge, 45, killed their neighbour Stephen Koszyczarski, 60, in a “brutal, heartless and despicable” attack in his flat in Woodseats, Sheffield, on 9 August last year.
The pair will serve a minimum of 26 years for what the judge, Sarah Wright, described as a “vicious and extremely violent” murder of a vulnerable man, which they partly filmed on a mobile phone.
On 16 May, the pair were found guilty of murder and robbery after just one hour of deliberations, following a three-week trial at Sheffield crown court.
During the trial, jurors were played a recording of a phone call Koszyczarski made to the emergency services while he was being attacked. In the recording he could be heard asking for an ambulance while he lay dying, with Rider’s voice in the background asking for his property.
Jurors were also shown mobile phone footage shot by the killers, in which they threatened to mutilate Koszyczarski with scissors. In the video, he pleads with them to stop, and one of the defendants replies: “Do you think I give a fuck?”
Koszyczarski died in hospital two days after he was left bleeding by Rider and Lethbridge with 22 separate injuries to his face, head and body.
Wright told the women they had set out to rob their victim during a drug-fulled attack in which they decided to “accuse Stephen completely spuriously, and without any reason to do so, of being a paedophile”.
She said: “You set about him in the most brutal, heartless and despicable manner. You launched a vicious and extremely violent joint attack upon him.
“You exposed his genitals, threatened to mutilate him and shouted obscenities at him. You singularly failed to listen to his denials of the accusation or to offer him any compassion when he was clearly injured.”
In a statement read to the court, Mary Jones, a close friend of Koszyczarski, said he was “a special man” with “a heart of gold”.
She said: “I am really struggling to come to terms with Steve’s murder and the horrid, evil things they have done to him. I still hear Steve’s voice. I find myself answering to him occasionally, then I remember he’s not there. It is heartbreaking that we won’t see him again.
“I cry most days and most nights, he was such a special man, he would help anybody, he had a heart of gold and I will forever miss his visits to my house. Just why these people are so bad and why they did the things they did to him, why have they murdered him, when he should still be alive and enjoying his life will always be a question I won’t get the answer to.
“Since he was taken from me, I have worn a locket with his photograph inside. He is smiling on that photo and that is how I will remember him.”
