The Twilight Killers
A teenage romance which turned into a horror story
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.