The Twilight Killers
A teenage romance which turned into a horror story
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Kim Edwards and Lucas Markham became Britain’s youngest double murderers in April 2016. They were both fourteen-years-old.
And despite how bloody the murders were, Kim and Lucas’s immediate response to their crime was even more unsettling.
Troubled childhood
Kim lived with her mother (Elizabeth) and her younger sister (Katie) in the market town of Spalding in southern Lincolnshire, England.
In 2008, a domestic row led to Elizabeth hitting her eldest daughter before referring herself to social services. Both Kim and Katie were taken into care, but only as a temporary measure.
The rift between Elizabeth and Kim continued to grow, however. The central issue was that Kim felt her mother preferred Katie; she grew up feeling she was second best all the time.
Kim even threatened to run away. And on one occasion, she wrote a suicide note which prompted Elizabeth to book an emergency psychiatric assessment for her daughter, though no one found any signs of mental illness.
Kim’s relationship with her mother became still more problematic when she turned thirteen and started dating Lucas Markham.
Like his new girlfriend, Lucas had suffered a difficult upbringing.
At the age of four, he was taken into foster care when his parents’ violent relationship led to divorce. He then moved in with his auntie.
One year later, his mother died of leukemia. And his relationship with his father was far from ideal given his heavy drinking habits.
At school, Lucas wasn’t unintelligent, demonstrating an aptitude for mathematics. But he did have anger issues and frequently had fights with other students.
When Kim first met Lucas at John Glebe High School, he was throwing a chair across a classroom in a fit of rage.
Teen romance
Over the next few months, Kim and Lucas became infatuated with each other, much to Elizabeth’s discontent. Given the pair of them had only recently become teenagers, she thought they were too young to be in a sexual relationship.
