Glastonbury yoga teacher Dawn Lewis murders her lodger

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02nd Dec, 2022. 12:05 am
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Glenn Richards, 61, was stabbed by Dawn Lewis, 54, on the evening of April 18 at her Glastonbury cottage.
Lewis claimed she had acted in self-defense, but a jury previously found her guilty.
A doctor told the court that Lewis’ wounds might have been self-inflicted because they were all in the same location and of varying degrees of severity.

A yoga instructor was convicted guilty of killing her lodger because he wouldn’t leave. Glenn Richards, 61, was stabbed by Dawn Lewis, 54, on the evening of April 18 at her Glastonbury cottage.

Lewis claimed she had acted in self-defense, but a jury at Bristol Crown Court had previously found her guilty.

An expert claimed that she most likely self-inflicted the knife wounds on her leg, and she had previously informed acquaintances that she intended to stab the victim first, followed by herself.

After less than nine hours of deliberation, the jury returned an 11-1 decision.

Judge William Hart informed her to anticipate a life sentence for Lewis, who will be sentenced on Friday.

Lewis claimed that shortly after moving in at the end of last year, Mr. Richards, who she had known for 12 years, began to alter his behavior.

She said he became “very distressed and depressed” due to losing his job in the charity shop where they met.

Their relationship quickly deteriorated over the five months they shared a home, as evidenced by angry text messages that were read to the jury.

Despite Lewis being lesbian and in a relationship, Mr. Richards reportedly begged her to marry him so she could inherit his pension when he passed away. He allegedly started feeling envious of all of her male pals.

She testified to the court that he started acting “stalkerish” and would purposefully walk in on her while she was in the shower or in bed, even when he was aware that she was having sex.

The court heard testimony from Mr. Richards during the trial that he had previously served time in prison for fatally stabbing his ex-wife in 2002 in front of their two children while suffering from mental illness.

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2011 saw Mr. Richards’ release after serving a nine-year sentence for manslaughter.

Before moving in with Lewis, he was residing in council housing in Street, Somerset.

Lewis, according to her friends, had previously talked about how she may get away with murder by stabbing someone then turning the knife on herself at a dinner party.

On the day of the murder, Ms. Lewis told Peter Bredell via video call: “I am going to stab him and stab myself,” Bredell said in testimony before the court on Wednesday.

He then imitated her purportedly stabbing move with the knife while pointing to her leg.

George Schomburg, a neighbor, claimed Lewis had made a such allegation at a dinner gathering a few months prior.

The doctor who attended to Ms. Lewis’s three wounds reportedly stated to the jury that they might have been self-inflicted because they were all in the same location and of varying degrees of severity.

If the initial wound was terrible, the subsequent ones were usually less painful and less severe, according to doctor Imran Khan.

Lewis testified in court that she started carrying a knife out of concern that Mr. Richards might hurt her; nevertheless, she added that she chose not to call the police because she did not want to put him in danger given his prior arrests.

But prosecutor Eloise Marshall KC challenged Lewis and said: “You weren’t scared.”

On April 18, Lewis dialed 999, and paramedics arrived to find Mr. Richards on the floor and her covered in blood.

Judge Hart brought up Lewis’ testimony, in which she said she overheard Mr. Richards pacing upstairs before there was a “almighty bang,” to the attention of the jury.

Before lunging for her, she claims she kicked down the door to his room and discovered him carrying a knife.

Lewis asserted that she was able to take the knife away from him and stab him in return.

However, the prosecution contended Lewis stabbed Mr. Richards in the back as he was walking away with the intention of killing him, then staged the incident to make it appear as though he had assaulted her.

Det Insp Neil Meade of Avon and Somerset Police said Mr. Richards had been “estranged from his sons for a number of years” but had recently begun to reconnect.

“They were due to meet up in the near future but Lewis’ actions robbed them of this opportunity,” he said.