Instead, after a seven-month relationship, it became Molly’s own private hell. Molly told friends she was tired of always ‘treading on eggshells around him’ and on June 17, 2017, Molly ended their relationship. But Joshua didn’t take the rejection well.
Soon, nasty lies about Molly started turning up on social media. In a message sent to a friend Molly wrote, He’s literally lost the plot. I’m actually scared of what he might do to me. After she reported him to police, officers warned Joshua to stay away from Molly, but his harassment continued.
On the morning of June 29 last year, Molly was at her local gym when Joshua appeared. CCTV footage shows Joshua leaving after a very brief conversation, where Molly is reported to have asked, ‘Are you following me now?’
In a text message to her mother Joanne, Molly wrote, Mum he’s turned up at the gym and come next to me. Joanne advised Molly to head straight home. And that’s exactly what Molly was trying to do when, in the car park, Joshua forced her car door open and stabbed his ex girlfriend over 75 times with a kitchen knife.
As Molly screamed, bystander Benjamin Moreton tried desperately to pull Jacob off her but his hands kept slipping on her blood.‘I looked at her and thought, “She isn’t going to survive this,” ’Benjamin said. Benjamin was right. Molly died and Joshua was arrested.
It took a jury just three hours to find Joshua Stimpson, 26, guilty of murder and sentence him to life in prison. In a statement, Molly’s family expressed their grief at losing their beloved daughter. A light has gone out in all of our hearts, they wrote, but shines bright as a star, forever glowing.
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