U.K. Shocker: Killers Poured Gasoline Down Victim's Throat and Set Him Afire!

June 03, 2009

Simon Everitt, 17, an engineering student at Great Yarmouth College, located along the coast northeast of London in Norfolk, was reported missing on June 9, 2008.  A homicide investigation began nearly a week later after police received a telephone call in which the caller provided shocking and appalling details of an attack on the young college student that ended in his gruesome murder.  A Norfolk police detective characterized the murder as one of the most horrific that he had ever investigated.

According to details that were revealed during the May 2009 trial of the defendants, young Everitt was taken captive and placed inside the trunk of a car and driven to a wooded area near Great Yarmouth where he was subsequently tied to a tree.  According to the court details, Jonathan Clarke, 19, Jimi-Lee Stewart, 25, and Maria Chandler, 40, poured gasoline down Everitt's throat and on his body, after which they set him afire.  Screaming and begging for help, the burning teenager broke free of his restraints when the fire burned through the ropes, enabling him to stumble a short distance where he collapsed and died.  The perpetrators of this horrendous crime tossed him into a gully and tried to conceal his body by covering it with dirt.

Apparently Everitt, Stewart and Clarke had been involved in an affair with a 19-year-old woman who called one of the killers by telephone during the attack, and had heard Everitt begging one of the killers for his life.

"Jimi, help me, please.  I am begging you, help me," the woman quoted Everitt as having said during the attack.

The case broke when Stewart's mother contacted the police.  Apparently Stewart had confessed to her what he and his cohorts had done.  She was described by one of the cops as a woman of "extreme moral courage" for being able to turn in her son for what he had done.  Clarke's siblings also told the police where the killers had buried Everitt.

"I was devastated that I had to call, but there was no way that I wasn't going to," Stewart's mother said.  "He told me exactly what happened and it had to be reported.  It's totally awful.  My reaction was shock, horror and disgust.  I thought, 'No, this isn't happening.'"

The autopsy showed that Everitt had died as a result of inhaling a combustible liquid.

According to the prosecutor, Karim Khalil, the idea for the killing had come about after Clarke had watched a horror film called Severance in which a character had been killed in a similar manner.

"When Clarke watched that DVD," Khalil said at trial, "he made a comment to this effect, 'wouldn't it be wicked if you could actually do that to someone in real life?'  (Everitt's body) was later moved and buried in the hope, no doubt, that he would never be found."

The defendants were convicted of murder in Everitt's death during the May trial.  After the verdict was announced, the trial judge said:  "As far as sentencing is concerned, the only remaining matter will be to decide on the minimum term each one is to serve before being considered for release."

Sentencing is scheduled for June 26, 2009.  All three defendants face the possibility of life prison terms.

Photo Credit: Investigation Discovery

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