A “callous and calculating” heroin user who murdered three people in six days has been convicted of raping his final victim, who was five months pregnant.
Anthony Russell had previously pleaded guilty to the murders of 58-year-old Julie Williams and her son David Williams, 32, at separate flats.
He had also admitted the October 26 murder of 31-year-old Nicole McGregor, who was found in woodland near Leamington Spa three days later.
After a retrial at Warwick Crown Court, Russell was unanimously found guilty on Thursday of raping Ms McGregor, after just an hour and 23 minutes of deliberations by the jury.
The 39-year-old assaulted her hours after she had showed him a picture of her baby scan.
Russell had also told the expectant father, who was Ms McGregor’s partner: “I bet you can’t wait for it to be born,” in the hours after she disappeared – knowing he had raped and killed her.
The killer strangled Mr Williams with a lanyard and left the body under his bed where it was found by police five days later, covered in 87 injuries.
Afterwards, Russell claimed he had killed a man who “had had sex with his girlfriend”.
Russell strangled Mr Williams’ mother in a “violent and sustained attack” in which she was hit five times on the head and neck, prosecutors said.
She had 113 separate injuries, and is believed to have been killed because she found out Russell had murdered her son.
CCTV footage of Ms McGregor, who lived in a flat was played to the jury during the trial, showing her walking alongside Russell at 7.45pm on October 26.
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