Eve and David Howells lost one child before they had two healthy boys, Glenn and John. Eve, a schoolteacher, abu*sed both of her sons from the time they were born because she was still upset about the death of her first child. John, who was her “favorite,” was ab*used less than his brother.
The boys didn’t get to do normal kid things like play outside very often. When Eve let them go outside, she would grab their hair and pull them back inside if they didn’t come when she called. Eve hit them in the back and on the legs, spat at them, yelled and cursed at them, and threw things at them. You name it.
“Fat Fu*cker” & More Ab*use
Eve wanted to punish Glenn for the death of her first child and made him take the blame. This made him more ab*used than John. The name “fat fucker” was a term she used a lot to get his attention.
Eve would make Glenn rub her back while she was naked in front of him. She also used the bathroom without clothes on while he took a bath or shower. The child would have to clean dirt off of her toenails.
A neighbor said that Eve tied the boys to the kitchen table when they were two or three years old because she and her husband hated going to the bathroom because they could always hear her screaming and the kids crying.
Eve threatened to “burn them alive” with a lighter while John, 4, and Glenn, 6, screamed, cried, and begged her to leave their favorite stuffed animals alone. When John was five, she took him to see a psychologist.
Several people called Childline to report the ab*use but no one intervene to help the boys.
An Affair Leads to Mur*der
David found out in 1995 that Eve had been seeing his best friend David Hirst for a long time. After two months, Eve was dead. Her sons had k*illed her with a hammer. She was very thin and weak, and she had cancer. David would get £155,000 from Eve’s life insurance if she went away.
David went on TV and asked people to help him get his wife back home. Police said he looked sad and upset, and they had no idea that he or their teenage sons were involved in the mur*der.
At first, police thought Eve had been ki*lled by thieves who broke into her home in Dalton, Huddersfield. After all, David said that a lot of money was missing from the house. Police changed their strategy when they got forensic evidence that pointed to the boys. Soon, all three men were arrested for Eve’s mu*rder.
David and Glenn didn’t tell the police much. David gave an explanation for when he didn’t kil*l his wife. There was a pub a few miles away where he played darts. Glenn, on the other hand, told the police that he hit his mother 10 times in the head with the claw end of the hammer. He said that he ki*lled his mother because she had been torturing and abu*sing him and his brother for years.
Men Found Guilty of Mur*der
All three said they were not guilty, but they were all found guilty of mu*rder. John told the judge that the mur*der had been planned by all three of them and that his dad was going to be playing darts away from home when it happened. In 1997, the teens, who were 15 and 14 years old at the time of the mu*rder, were given an indefinite sentence to stay in Her Majesty’s Prison. David was given a life sentence in prison.
