UK trial: two women deny murdering friend whose body lay undiscovered for a month
Two women are on trial in England accused of murdering a 52-year-old friend and leaving her body undiscovered in her flat for almost a month. Both deny the charges.
A trial is under way at Chelmsford Crown Court against Amy Keely, 40, and Charlotte James, 29, who are accused of murdering 52-year-old Helen Bloomfield at her flat in Braintree, Essex.
Prosecutors say the two defendants killed Bloomfield at her home in Godric Place after 01:00 on 20 March 2024, ransacking the flat and smothering her with a pillow. She suffered 44 injuries, including stab and cut wounds. Her body was not found until 19 April, nearly a month after her death. Prosecutor Julian Evans KC told the court Bloomfield was a vulnerable woman who had previously been sectioned under the Mental Health Act.
Keely, who told the court she had been living in a van, said she met Bloomfield in 2022 and the pair often drank and took drugs together at her home. She denied claims from the defence that four witnesses had heard her bragging about killing Bloomfield, calling the allegations lies. Keely said she had used drugs for 20 years and by 2024 was smoking crack cocaine daily and injecting heroin, including at Bloomfield's flat in February or March, which she said would explain why her blood was found in the home, including on broken pieces of a mirror. She also said she knocked on Bloomfield's door about a week after the alleged killing and assumed she had been sectioned when there was no answer.
Prosecutors allege the pair turned violent after failing to find money or drugs in the flat, later washing blood off in the bathroom and eating breakfast cereal, leaving it scattered across surfaces. Keely denied this account. The trial, which began on 8 September, continues.
