A psychiatric patient who murdered a woman at random in the street six years after killing her own mother was jailed for life at the Old Bailey on Monday.
Nicola Edgington will serve a minimum of 37 years for murder after killing and nearly decapitating Sally Hodkin, 58, in a knife attack in Bexleyheath, south-east London.
The 32-year-old from Greenwich also received a concurrent sentence of 20 years for the attempted murder of Kerry Clark, 22, who escaped with cuts to her hands from the attack on October 2011.
The patient had been ordered to be detained indefinitely at a secure hospital after fatally stabbing her mother nine times in 2006 but was released after three years when medics deemed her well enough to be treated in the community.
Diagnosed with schizophrenia, Edgington had pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
But Recorder of London Judge Brian Barker said she was “consistent and calculated” and needed to take responsiblity for her actions.
“You are manipulative and exceptionally dangerous,” he told her. “What you did could not have been more selfish.
“I disagree that the responsibility for these acts can be laid on others.
“You made your choice and these were terrible acts for which you must take responsibility.
“You have come as near as can be to having three deaths on your hands.”
John Cooper QC, representing Edgington, said she was a woman in crisis who had not received the help she needed.
The court heard how police had taken her to Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich in the hours before the attack after her mental state deteriorated.
While waiting to be admitted, she phoned 999 five times, warning that she was dangerous and would harm somebody unless sectioned.
The patient was taken to the hospital’s mental health unit but walked out soon afterwards.
“It is unfortunate that the shift was changing and one of the doors was faulty,” the judge told the court.
She took a bus to Bexleyheath and bought a knife from supermarket Asda. She tried to attack her first victim, Clark, with it at a bus stop but the woman grabbed the knife and kicked her away.
Then she took a bigger knife from a nearby butcher’s shop and fatally stabbed Hodkin with a blow that almost severed her head, the court heard.
Schizophrenic jailed for life for knife killing
