Woman Found Guilty of Murdering Husband of 27 Years, Pretending He Was Suicidal: Prosecutors

Maureen Rickards, 50, was accused of killing Jeremy Rickards, 65, in June 2024. He was last seen on June 7, 2024, with his body found on July 11, six days after his daughter reported him missing, per The BBC.

He’d been stabbed to death, according to a press release from the Crown Prosecution Service, with Kent Police detailing five stab wounds to the chest.

A tenant in the building where the Rickards lived told police they’d “heard heard something heavy being hauled down the stairs at night,” before seeing Maureen in the garden.

A postmortem examination of Jeremy’s body revealed that he had been stabbed to death. He was additionally recovering from recent rib fractures, per the release, and had “been strangled weeks before his death,” leading them to conclude he was the victim of domestic abuse at the hands of his wife.

CPS also detailed witness reports of seeing Jeremy with serious injuries prior to his death, “including a large cut on his forehead and bruising to his eyes and ears.” Witnessed told authorities they were concerned enough to urge him to go to the hospital for treatment.

In their release, authorities detailed one incident where Jeremy responded to a query about his injuries by saying, “Maureen was in a bad mood with me.”

Police also found video of Maureen “being aggressive to Jeremy and striking him.” At one point, she even said on video that she would “do him harm or kill him,” according to CPS.

As part of their investigation into Jeremys’ death, police discovered the great lengths Maureen allegedly went to in an attempt to cover up his death, per the CPS report, including using his bank cards to shipping.

She even purportedly messaged their daughter and herself from Jeremy’s phone on June 27 to say he’d arrived in Saudi Arabia, as well as that he that he planned to take his own life, per People.

Maureen then contacted their daughter the following day, according to the BBC, and told her that her father had committed suicide.

The BBC revealed the contents of that purported message, which read, “Jeremy is dead. He took his own life… there were witnesses. I was asleep.”

“Mum said last night, before I had to block her again, that you’re dead and you killed yourself,” the daughter subsequently texted her father’s phone, per the outlet. “So I don’t know if this is really you or just her having taken over your phone again.”

Suspicious of the wording in the messages she received from her father’s phone and concerned that “her mother had taken [it] over,” per CPS, the daughter filed a missing persons report on July 5, 2024 with the police.

Police were reportedly able to quickly find the body when they searched the backyard due to the smell. When arrested for the death of her husband, Maureen reportedly asked police, “What body?”

When they recovered Jeremy’s phone, the BBC reports that the messages with his daughter had been deleted.

In their statement, James Fisher of the Crown Prosecution Service South East said investigators were able to cut through Maureen’s “web of lies, using forensic evidence and her actions before and after the murder, to paint the picture of a callous abuser, who subjected Jeremy to unimaginable pain and suffering.”

Fisher said that Jeremy endured a “campaign of sustained abuse” before his death, with the abuses becoming “more severe in the run-up to his murder, leaving him frail, battered and bruised, with everyone who came into contact with him concerned for his wellbeing.”

He argued that Maureen “lied about the cruelty and violence she inflicted,” even going so far as to say his injuries had come from a car accident. Additionally, Fisher asserted that the suspect “Maureen has never taken responsibility for her actions nor shown any remorse for murdering Jeremy.”

Investigators discovered pools of blood inside the cupboard and the floor beneath it, even staining the ceiling of the apartment below, suggesting that Jeremy’s body had initially been stored there for a period of time.

Police discovered that Maureen had purchased cleaning products on June 20 with her husband’s bank card she allegedly used in an attempt to clean up blood from the the carpet in the bedroom.

She further hired a handyman to cut the grass and put the clippings toward the bottom of the yard, per the release, which she then allegedly used in an attempt to cover the duffel bag.

Tying her to at least some part of the process of attempting to hide Jeremy’s body, per the release, investigators found Maureen’s DNA on one of the trash bags that Jeremy’s body was wrapped in.

Maureen, meanwhile, told the jury in court that she was being “set up,” according to the BBC.

“Something scary is going on. This is spooky, this is scary,” she said.

Maureen Rickards is scheduled for sentencing on April 9, per the BBC, which added that she “did not react when the verdict was read out in court.”