A British mother was brutally stabbed to death in disturbingly similar circumstances to her own mother's murder which she witnessed 14 years earlier.
Claire Marshall, 35, was killed in front of her teenage daughter outside her home in Cumbria, in England's northwest, by her former partner last January.
Benjamin Cooper, also 35, attacked Ms Marshall with a penknife and then stabbed her with a larger knife while visiting their three-year-old daughter, the Daily Mail reports.
The Manchester Crown Court yesterday heard a statement given to police from the victim's 15-year-old daughter (from a previous relationship).
"He was looking at my mum dead weird," she told police.
"He jumped my mum and started hitting her and hitting her … then he got his penknife out and started to cut her throat.
"He went into the kitchen to grab a knife. I tried to stop him and reason with him but he just pushed me away."
Pathologist John Rogers told the court that he believed a frenzied Cooper was "trying to cut Claire's head off".
After allegedly attempting to decapitate his former partner, Cooper held the knife to the 15-year-old girl before she escaped with a younger sister and alerted neighbours.
With his victim dying in a pool of blood, Cooper fled the scene and drove to the home of his stepfather, Gerald Fern.
He also attacked the 64-year-old, this time with a meat cleaver, but the man survived.
Ms Marshall had watched in horror 14 years earlier as her mother Marjorie, then 50, was stabbed 30 times and left to die by her adopted brother.
The brother pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility and escaped with three years' probation.
Cooper yesterday pleaded guilty to his former partner's manslaughter on the same technicality after his lawyer argued he was suffering a psychotic delusion that she was plotting his murder.
He also pleaded guilty to the attempted murder of Mr Fern.
Cooper, who admits to a history of drug abuse, will be sentenced tomorrow.
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