The woman now wishes she'd died that day instead of surviving because she is "unsure if I will ever feel true happiness or love ever again."
Trigger Warning: This story contains details of abuse that may be disturbing to readers.
Shaun and Laura May had just returned home from their holiday in Korea; things seemed okay between the couple who'd just gotten married 14 months ago, and they were spending time together. In fact, after engaging in coitus, Shaun told Laura he had a gift for her. Per his instructions, she closed her eyes, excited to see what her husband had gotten her. Little did she know that his plan was to kill her, and then end his own life.
What prompted Shaun to take such a drastic step was the fact that he'd been fired from his job as he was caught ordering things online from his work account for his personal use. Unemployed, he had no idea how he was going to pay off the mortgage and death seemed like the easy way out for the distraught man, according to Sky News.
On the day the incident occurred, in October 2018, the two shared some food and went to bed. A while later, Shaun went down, after telling Laura he heard some noise. "He returned to bed, cuddled and there was some sexual activity before telling her he had a present for her and asking her to close her eyes," Prosecutor Robin Griffiths revealed, during the trial at Maidstone Crown Court in September 2019.
Per Kent Live, Shaun placed a tea towel over her eyes, started to count down from 10, and uttered, "Come on Shaun" to himself in encouragement, before stabbing his wife between her shoulder and neck. It is unclear what the weapon was, but it seemed to be something knife-like, and Shaun reportedly used so much pressure to stab his wife that he broke the weapon's handle.
“He told me to lay on my back, which I did and he placed something over my eyes. I thought it was a tea towel,” Laura testified, reports Crime Online. “I said to him, ‘This had better be a puppy,’ because we had talked about having one, but he said, ‘It’s not a puppy’…..He then started counting from 10..9…8…7..5…4…3. then 2.4..2.3. I was getting annoyed. He did this two or three times…he never reached zero.”
“Then it was just silent, and I suddenly felt a pressure on my shoulder. I thought an animal had been thrown on me, something was clawing at me.” But she then felt a cold, metallic sensation, the court heard.
“I was screaming, ‘I can’t get it off, I can’t get it off’. I must have reached up there at some point and realized there was nothing there, no animal. But there was something rectangular in there,” Laura testified. “I thought it was a clamp or some kind of Halloween prop because I could feel blood trickling down.”
Laura managed to get out of the bed after Shaun removed the knife from her body, but saw that he was now holding two knives and was threatening to kill himself, too. She finally persuaded him to drop the knife and tell her why he stabbed her, which is when he told her that he was unemployed. "He said something like 'You are not going to be with me now. Look what I've done. I was in complete shock and said 'It's fine. We will get through this'."
Once he snapped out of it, he drove his injured wife to Pembury Hospital in Kent where she claimed she had fallen on the knife, but the staff called the police. He waited with his wife until the cops came and arrested him. "They came and took Shaun. That's the last time I saw him," she added.
At the trial, Shaun was given a sentence of 13 and a half years for attempted murder. However, Laura wishes her life would have been so much easier if she'd just been killed that night, according to another report by Kent Live. "My life is not the same, I'm not the same and I don't think I ever will be," she said, adding, " I feel I am merely existing, going through the motions of not living."
She then added that she's unable to deal with all the emotions from her close ones, as they can never trust her around Shaun ever again. "As a result, I'm seeking a divorce, something as yet Shaun has not agreed to," she shared.
To stop her friends and family from worrying about her, she keeps a brave face on, but she's getting tired of pretending, she revealed. "I do a very good job of appearing strong but in reality, I lack any real feelings. I feel empty. I am unsure if I will ever feel true happiness or love ever again."
References:
https://www.kentlive.news/news/kent-news/tunbridge-wells-husband-jailed-stabbing
Cover Image Source (Representative): Getty Images /
Sorrasak Jar Tinyo
