26 July 2023 , 12:13
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Chilling audio captures the moment a husband confessed to murdering his wife at their marital home. Mihiai Hurmuz-Irimia, 29, used two blades to stab Katie Hurmaz-Irimia, 40, just days after they returned from a trip to celebrate their fifth wedding anniversary.
A court heard the victim suffered wounds "all over" her body in the sickening attack at the address in Wallingford, Oxfordshire. Hurmuz-Irimia now faces a life sentence after a jury at Oxford Crown Court found him guilty of murder yesterday following just three and a half hours of deliberations.
During the week-long trial, jurors heard the defendant stabbed his wife 171 times as was "resentful" of attempts by his wife to make him stop drinking.
Katie Hurmuz-Irimia suffered injuries 'all over' due to the sustained attack (Thames Valley Police WS)Remanding the thug into custody to be sentenced on Thursday, Judge Ian Pringle KC said: "The sentence will be one of life imprisonment but I need to set a term, a minimum term, which you need to serve before being eligible to apply for parole."
After the murder on August 30, 2022, Hurmuz-Irimia phoned 999 call and told operators - "Hello, I think I've killed my wife." The harrowing 999 call, released by Thames Valley Police today after it was played to the jury, captures Hurmuz-Irimia say: "I stabbed her - all over the place."
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He then tells the operator: "I need to be locked up. My head told me to do something. I done it." He later adds: "I told you my brain is wrong. There's a lot of blood in the hallway. Can't even look at it. I just like blacked out. Like my head was like 'boom'."
When asked to reassure the handler he won't be a danger to cops or himself when they arrive, he responds: "I'm not a danger to anyone... Well, I am obviously to my wife but..."
Mihai Hurmuz-Irimia murdered his wife by stabbing her 170 times (Thames Valley Police / SWNS)The trial heard the married couple had just returned from a trip to Bournemouth, Dorset, to celebrate their anniversary. The victim had accused the defendant of "ruining" their holiday with his drunken behaviour and told him their marriage would be "well and truly over" when they got home.
A few days after they returned, he killed her in a stabbing frenzy in the early hours of August 30 last year, prosecutors claimed. The defendant, who denied murder on the grounds of diminished responsibility, showed no emotion when the jury returned its verdict.
Hurmuz-Irimia said he had been suffering from an emotionally unstable personality disorder. There were so many wounds that, in places, pathologist Dr Charlotte Randall was only able to estimate the wounds in a particular area of the body.
Hurmuz-Irimia used two blades to attack his partner last year (Thames Valley Police / SWNS)Pictures of the flat presented to the jury showed the terrible aftermath of the attack. While the victim’s body had been obscured in the photographs, large pools of blood on the floor around her were still clearly visible.
There was extensive bloodstaining in the bedroom, where the attack began, and in the hallway where her body was found face-down on the ground.
Other bloodstaining evidence suggested that the killer had walked into the living room following the attack, sat down on the sofa and used the TV remote. He also took a shower, leaving his heavily bloodstained boxer shorts on the bathroom floor.
Thames Valley Police launched a murder investigation in Wallingford after Ms Hurmaz-Irimia died (DANIEL JAE WEBB/SWNS)In his closing speech to the jury on Monday, prosecutor John Price KC suggested the motive for the killing was "easy to find". He suggested the defendant was ‘resentful’ of attempts by his wife to make him stop drinking.
Mr Price said: "This was a killing of a woman for which this defendant was fully responsible and he has tried to conceal that responsibility by lying or by refusing to state was really happened. This killing, we submit, was undoubtedly murder. And that is the verdict we would [ask] you to return."
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The couple, who met 10 years earlier on a night out in Reading, Berkshire, had spent the Bank Holiday weekend before her murder celebrating their fifth wedding anniversary at a hotel in Bournemouth.
When Mihai, who a couple of years earlier was arrested on suspicion of threatening his wife with weapons, spent the Saturday night getting drunk in the hotel bar with off-duty members of staff, Katie sent a series of frustrated messages.
Forensic officers are pictured at the murder scene (DANIEL JAE WEBB/SWNS)She told him, bluntly: “As far as I'm concerned we are over. This is meant to be our family holiday not you drinking with the staff."
Notwithstanding the messages, the couple seemed to be on better terms the following day. They sent "loving" messages on their return to Wallingford on the Monday afternoon, when both attended a barbecue at Katie’s mother’s home.
Later that evening, Mihai Hurmuz-Irimia twice took the couple’s dog out for a walk. During the first of the two walks, he was said to have bought cocaine. The jury heard he had claimed to have taken two grams of the drug on the night of the killing.