Body-in-the-box killer gets 20 years (From The Argus)

Body-in-the-box killer gets 20 years

10:55am Thursday 15th May 2008 in

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Body-in-the-box murderer Andre Genestin was this morning jailed for life and told he must serve at least 20 years.

A jury took less than two hours to convict Genestin yesterday of using a mallet to crush the skull of his wife Catherine, 38, as she sat on their lounge sofa then hid her body in and around the house.

In the weeks after the murder, which happened some time over the weekend of May 11 and 14 last year, French national Genestin carried on life as normal.

He attempted to allay the concerns expressed by family and friends by insisting his wife was prone to disappearing and she would return home to Maresfield Road, Brighton, East Sussex, in a few weeks.

Judge Anthony Scott Gall, sitting at Lewes Crown Court, said unemployed Genestin, 48, had been convicted on the "most compelling evidence".

During the two-week trial, jurors heard it was only after the couple's young daughter repeatedly raised her concerns about her mother's disappearance with her teachers that social services and the police investigated.