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Gan Ning
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Breaking News
4:52pm Tuesday November 30, 2010
Mother And Baby Knife Murderer Gets Life
Jon di Paolo
An unemployed pub manager has been convicted of murdering his girlfriend and their 10-month-old daughter in a "sustained and fearsome" knife attack.
Marsh said voices in his head told him to carry out the killings
Anthony Marsh stabbed Stephanie Bellinger, 24, more than 30 times as she slept at their home in Totton, Hampshire in February. Their daughter, Lili Marsh, was stabbed once through the head as she lay on the same bed.
The 22-year-old had heard voices in his head saying he should kill them. He had admitted the killings, but denied murder on the grounds of diminished responsibility. He said he did not kill the couple's two-and-half-year-old son, who he left locked in the house after the murders, because he was able to resist the voices.
At the end of the attack, he left the knife embedded in Miss Bellinger's mouth and fled. Her mother and sister discovered the "truly distressing scene" when they broke in and found the son unharmed but alone. Her family wept in the public gallery as the verdicts were given.
The jury at Winchester Crown Court heard during the two-week trial that Marsh suffered from bipolar disorder and the family were in £13,000 debt, partly because he lost his job after he stole from a pub he worked in. He often fled the family home and went to other cities, sleeping rough before handing himself in at hospitals.
