Jane Longhurst

Special needs teacher Jane Longhurst was murdered by Graham Coutts on 14 March 2003. At the time, Coutts was a guitarist and part-time salesman living in Brighton. He claimed that Longhurst had died accidentally during consensual erotic asphyxiation, although the prosecution maintained that there was nothing to suggest that Coutts and Longhurst had ever been lovers. Coutts was convicted of murder on 3 February 2004, and sentenced to a life term serving a minimum of 30 years (reduced to 26 years on appeal on 26 January 2005). The conviction was quashed by the Court of Appeal on 19 July 2006, and a new trial started on 12 June 2007. He was again found guilty on 4 July 2007. Jane Longhurst (born November 6, 1971, died March 14, 2003) had been a special needs teacher and musician living in Brighton, England. Her partly decomposed body was found burning in woodland in West Sussex on 19 April. When arrested, Coutts, who was her best friend's boyfriend, admitted causing her death. He had first hidden the body in a shed, then in an empty flat, and finally in a storage centre, where he had visited it nine times in a three-week period.