Russell Causley says he disposed of wife's ashen remains in hedges

Wife killer Russell Causley, 79, tells Britain’s first public parole hearing that he burned her body in his garden and disposed of the ashen remains on roadsides and hedgerows

• Causley, 79, killed his wife in 1985 but had never revealed where her body lies
• He told a public parole hearing he burned Carole Packman’s body in his garden
• Then he spread her ashen remains on roadsides and hedgerows in Bournemouth
• The hearing allows parole board to establish if Causley would be a risk if released

Russell Causley told Britain’s first public parole hearing that he burned his wife’s body in his garden and disposed of the remains along roadsides and hedgerows around Bournemouth.

Causley, 79, was handed a life sentence in 1996 for killing Carole Packman, who disappeared in 1985 – a year after he moved his lover into their home in Bournemouth, Dorset.

Up until now he had never disclosed the location of Ms Packman’s body, though he has confessed and retracted claims about his wife’s death before.

He initially evaded police by faking his own death as part of an insurance fraud eight years after Mrs Packham disappeared, his parole hearing was told. 

He was freed from prison in 2020 after his sixth parole review and spending more than 23 years behind bars for the murder.

However Causley was sent back to jail in November last year for breaching his licence conditions, the public hearing heard.

He failed to answer a phone call from his probation officer and disappearing from his bail hostel overnight without his phone or wallet.

Causley with Ms Packman and daughter Samantha. The murderer evaded justice for a decade after faking his own death

Russell Causley, pictured, was handed a life sentence for killing Carole Packman who disappeared in 1985

Carole Packman disappeared in 1985, a year after Causley moved his lover into their home in Bournemouth, Dorset

The hearing, which is taking place in a prison, began this morning with relatives, members of the public and journalists allowed to watch the proceedings on a live videolink from the Parole Board’s offices in Canary Wharf, London.

No decision on his release will be made today as it is a hearing for the Parole Board to gather evidence to establish if whether Causley would be a risk if released. 

Causley’s behaviour was said by a member of prison staff to have been ‘exemplary’ since he has been back in jail.

Asked about the period during which he was released from prison in late 2020, he said that he got on well with staff at the hostel where he was living and viewed them ‘more as friends’, but ‘could have had a better rapport’ with his probation officer.

He spent his time reading, doing crosswords, walking and shopping, Causley told the panel.

Russell Causley claimed in the parole hearing that he was attacked by the three men in Portsmouth while it was ‘totally dark’ as he walked along the promenade close to the beach at around 5pm on November 26.

The victim’s daughter and grandson, Sam and Neil Gillingham have been campaigning for Causley to remain behind bars as he continues to refuse to reveal the whereabouts of his wife’s body

What happened to Carole Packman? 

Carole Packman disappeared from her family home in Bournemouth in 1985. 

Her daughter Sam Gillingham, then 16, came home from school to find a note, supposedly from her mother, along with her wedding ring.  The letter said that she was leaving their family. 

The year before, Causley moved his lover Patricia Causley into the house and later changed his surname to hers.  

It was not until 10 years later, when Causley was jailed for two years for trying to fake his death in a boating accident that he was found guilty of her murder.  He allegedly made a jail cell confession, telling of the ‘perfect’ murder of his ‘b**** wife’. 

Police reopened their investigation into his wife’s disappearance. 

Causley was convicted of murder in 1996, but it was quashed in 2003.  

In 2004, he was found guilty at a retrial after his sister said she had heard him admit the killing.    

Now aged 79, he was the first killer in British legal history to be found guilty without his victim’s body ever being found.

He said he could not remember many details but the men were shouting and wanted money or a phone. Asked why he thought this happened, he told the panel: ‘I just think it was wrong time, wrong place,’ adding that it may have been because he was an elderly man walking with a stick.

After the attack, which he reported to the police, he said he just ‘gave up’ and lay on the beach until morning rather than trying to get back to his accommodation or seek help.

He said: ‘All I can remember is laying on the beach shivering.’

Causley told the parole panel he had ‘bruises’ and was injured after the attack, but the proceedings heard police had not recorded any visible injuries when he was taken back into custody – at which point he claimed he was never examined by officers.

Causley then gave a rambling account of the circumstances around his wife’s murder, insisting ‘I didn’t hate my wife, I loved my wife’.

He said he ‘adored’ his mistress Trisha, who he moved into his marital home two years before his wife’s death.

‘I’ve given the excuse or reason for all this was my infatuation, my devotion with Trisha. There was no question I adored her,’ he said.

Causley put the house into his and his mistress’s names after his wife’s murder, but told the panel that there had been ‘no major plan’ to do so.

He claimed that his mistress had told him to murder his wife, but also alleged that she had carried out the killing herself and that he was left with her body in his garage.

He said: ‘I’m now in my house in Bournemouth on a lovely summer day with the body of my wife in the garage.’

Causley told the panel that disposing of the body was worse than committing murder.

Source: Read Full Article