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Why did you kill my family?
EXCLUSIVE Mum wants to ‘sit down’ with man who killed her grandson, daughter and husband to ask what drove him to carry out horrific attack
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JUBILEE SPECIAL PAGES 14&15 PLUS 8-PAGE PULL-OUT STARTS PAGE 41
by Dan Bloom dbloom@thekmgroup.co.uk
IT WAS one of the happiest days of her life.
Without a care in the world, Melissa Crook hugged her father Mark on the day she married car salesman Danai “Sam” Muhammadi.
EXCLUSIVE PICTURE – Melissa Crook and her father Mark on her wedding day in 2009
Two years later the blushing bride, her dad and her son Noah were dead. Muhammadi, 24, is facing life in jail after torching their Chatham home in a spite-fuelled petrol attack. Turn to page 5
PLUS
Amanda Crook wants to talk to her daughter’s killer
CHATHAM HILL MURDERS: THE FULL STORY See pages 5-13
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THE FULL STORY
by Dan Bloom
n Marriage to murder 6&7 n Night of terror 8&9 n Betrayal of ‘son’ 10&11 n Dad was fighter from birth 12&13
I couldn’t believe it until I saw him fill up petrol cans on CCTV From front page
The Crooks’ home was gutted by the killer fire
Now Melissa’s mum Amanda Crook has spoken movingly of her pain, her anger and how she was the last to believe her son-inlaw was a murderer. In an exclusive interview in the family’s Gillingham home days after the verdict, the 50-year-old was joined by her son Bohdan, 22, daughter Charlotte Acton, 27, and parents Tony and Pam Thornburn. She said: “I would like to sit down with Sam across the table with a cup of coffee and say: ‘Why did you do it?’” Mrs Thornburn, 73, said: “My great-grandson Adam, he’s five, he was in Hempstead Valley this week kissing the pictures of Melissa, Mark and Noah on the front of the paper. He calls Mark the Fat Controller. We had to tell him they’ve gone to God and Jesus. “It’s like dropping a stone in water and the ripples spread out. It affects everyone.” Her husband, former Sapper Tony, 72, said: “It’s affected friends, neighbours and without exaggerating, people from all over the world.” But far from being ripped apart, the Crooks are united in grief. “We’ve formed new bonds,” said Bohdan. “You look at life a different way.” A jury unanimously found Muhammadi guilty of murdering Melissa, Mark and Noah and attempting to murder Amanda and Bohdan, who escaped the blaze. His friend, Maidstone nightclub bouncer Farhad Mahmud, was found guilty of the same charges and his new girlfriend, unemployed Emma Smith, was found guilty of three manslaughters by 10-2 majorities. She was acquitted of attempted murder. Muhammadi drove from Coventry to Kent on the night of September 10 and filled a garden sprayer with petrol. The path to murder began much earlier, at a joyous wedding ceremony at Rochester’s Corn Exchange in September 2009.
Amanda’s grandson Noah Mrs Crook, who offered her daughter a £20 dress from eBay for a joke, posed happily with her son-in-law and never imagined he could be a ruthless killer. She said: “I couldn’t believe it until in court, I saw him fill up those petrol cans on CCTV. “That was the moment when I thought ‘you definitely did that.’ I think at the back of my brain there was still this portion that was saying he couldn’t possibly have done that to his own child.” Mr Thornburn, a great-grandfather of nine, added: “For me it was the first halfhour in court. For somebody to stand in that dock and show not one ounce of emotion said it all. “I can never forgive somebody who drove 150 miles. That isn’t spur-of-the-moment or domestic violence, that’s an evil, wicked human being.” For the family, the hardest part of the sixweek trial was listening to Muhammadi’s “fairytale” defence.
First he claimed 26-stone Mark Crook had asked him to beat someone up. Mrs Crook said: “Why would Mark pick the weediest person in the family to do that?” Then Muhammadi claimed two men threatened to torch Melissa’s home – and Melissa stopped him telling police. Another lie, say the family. Mrs Crook added: “We couldn’t say that in court, we couldn’t stand up and say ‘you’re lying about this, you’re lying about that’.” But the family did come face-to-face with Muhammadi to give evidence. Charlotte, an administrator at Brompton Barracks, said: “The worst thing was when he started almost laughing at me when I cried in the witness box.” Bohdan added: “When he was smiling, that put the rage in you. Melissa always said he was the best actor she ever met. He could put on the tears just like that.” The Crooks offered special thanks to DCI David Chewter, who led the case, and family liaison officers DC Sam Stuart and DC Mark Silk. Amanda: “I want to do something to stop this happening again, even though there’s nothing I can do. If I could help one family not go through this again, then I would. “The hardest thing as a mum is I can’t fix my kids. When they were little I could put a plaster on them, take them to the doctors, but I can’t fix this for them.” Bohdan, who works for festival catering firm Rasta Pasta, now plans to sing with a funk band to raise funds and is organising a charity boxing match near his new home in Bournemouth. The killers will be sentenced in the first week of July. Bohdan said: “If they get 50 years then dad would’ve gone, Mel would be 70-something and Noah would be a 50-year-old man. Take away the life he took from them. “It’s got to make an example of them and show this is never going to happen again.”
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CHATHAM HILL MURDERS: TIMELINE TO TRAGEDY
From marriage to murder
Chain of events that led to deadly arson attack
2006 (approx) Kurdish immigrant Danai Muhammadi meets Melissa Crook, a pupil at Gillingham’s Upbury Manor School. The Crook family disapprove at first but welcome Muhammadi into the fold. He also meets Farhad Mahmud, an older Kurd who is working as a forklift truck driver in Maidstone.
Summer 2007 Melissa moves to Coventry with Muhammadi soon after turning 16 and they rent a terraced home in Britannia Street. Melissa enrols on a business admin course at City College Coventry and works at a coffee shop and taxi firm.
September 28, 2009
Danai Muhammadi Home in Britannia Street, Coventry They wed on Melissa’s parents’ 20th wedding anniversary at Rochester’s Corn Exchange with Mark Crook as a witness.
May 25, 2010 Noah Crook is born despite Melissa being told she could not
Noah Crook
conceive. Muhammadi struggles to balance fatherhood, work and study.
April 1, 2011
Farhad Mahmud
July 2011 Emma Smith, who is about the same age as Melissa and has a son a little older than Noah, splits from her husband David.
Police caution Muhammadi for spitting at Melissa and punching her. She leaves with her and Noah’s Amanda clothes in black Crook sacks and her mother Amanda picks her up later that day.
Between August 2 and 4 Muhammadi meets Smith at a bus stop and offers her a lift home. They swap numbers and start sleeping together three days later.
April - Sept 2011
August 30
Muhammadi pleads with his wife to rejoin him but she refuses. He seeks help for his anger.
2am Muhammadi intervenes. He texts Melissa saying: “Til this evening I tried and I’m sick of
August 29 Smith texts Melissa and within a few hours they are exchanging stinging insults. The exchanges go on for days.
Emma Smith waiting for you to forgive me.”
Monday, September 5 Smith texts Melissa saying “you will be sorry. you’re skating on thin ice with me”.
Wednesday, September 7 Muhammadi meets Melissa and Noah in London. She tells friends they sign divorce papers but he says she offers a reconciliation. Muhammadi texts Smith, his new girlfriend, to say they are through, so she sleeps with her dad’s friend Wayne Elliot.
Friday, September 9 12.30pm Muhammadi texts Smith from work saying “look, I like you
very much, you know that.” 1.30pm He tells a colleague his wife and son have already been hurt in a fire shortly after asking bosses to look after £10,000 for him. 3.30pm He picks up Smith and has a long phone call with Mahmud in Kurdish. 4.30pm He and Smith visit a library where his Facebook status changes to “in a relationship”. 5.30pm He returns to his flat and asks to borrow his lodger’s garden sprayer. 6pm He phones Melissa for the last time and says good night to Noah, calling him “my lovely boy”, then wraps the garden sprayer in a blanket and puts it in a holdall.
7.10pm Muhammadi and Smith leave Coventry in his Renault Megane. 10pm They arrive at Mahmud’s flat in Fernhill Road, Maidstone. They go to Pizza Go Go in Tonbridge Road, then put on loud music, smoke cannabis and take photos of themselves kissing. 11pm Smith films her boyfriend playing Love Like This by Natasha Bedingfield on guitar and saying “Melissa lost”.
Saturday, September 10 8am Dawn breaks and media
WE WON’T LET THE KILLERS BEAT US, SAY SURVIVORS - pages 12&13
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CHATHAM HILL MURDERS: TIMELINE TO TRAGEDY begin arriving in Chatham Hill amid rumours people have died. 9am Muhammadi gets up to go to work. Smith goes to a walk-in centre to complain she is feeling ill. 9.30am DC Ian Godsmark and DC Dave Frampton leave Chatham to tell Muhammadi his wife has died, but on the way a colleague discovers his movements on the automatic number plate recognition system (ANPR). He becomes a suspect. 10.59am Muhammadi texts his dead wife saying: “Can I book the hotel... love you, mate. give Noah a hug and kiss for me.” 11am A press conference confirms a mother and her child are dead. 12.30pm DC Godsmark, DC Frampton and Coventry police storm Muhammadi’s empty home. They find an envelope with Mahmud’s postcode scrawled on it. At the same time Mahmud texts Muhammadi his bank details. 2.10pm They arrest Muhammadi and his brother Osman outside Andrew’s Garage. Osman is later released without charge. 7pm News breaks that Muhammadi is one of the unnamed men under arrest. Hundreds of people join a tribute group to Melissa and Noah on Facebook.
Sunday, September 11 7.30pm Police arrest Mahmud at his flat in Fernhill Road, Maidstone, and find the garden sprayer in his bath. It contains traces of petrol.
Monday, September 12
10am Smith visits police in Coventry but while they are interviewing her, she claims Muhammadi was not in Kent. DC Andy Jobes slips his colleague
Saturday, September 10 n 1.30am Mahmud returns from work at Babylon in King Street, Maidstone. He and Muhammadi get in the Megane and set off for Medway. n 2.03am The Megane reaches the top of Blue Bell Hill. n 2.13am Muhammadi stops at Texaco in Maidstone Road, Chatham, to buy 7.01 litres of petrol, two Red Bull cans and two Snickers Duo bars. He fills the garden sprayer and a petrol can. n 2.30am (approx) Amanda Crook wakes up to pink flames in her bedroom in terraced home 210 Chatham Hill. She shouts to the rest of the family to get out. n 2.31am Taxi driver Indrit Arapi sees two men at the boot of a Megane wearing hoods and gloves. n 2.31am Megane passes martial arts club going down Chatham Hill. n 2.32am (approx) Amanda Crook escapes through a back window but watches her husband burn alive as he gets stuck in the frame. Bohdan, wearing only his boxer shorts, leaps from his bedroom on to the drive after a failed attempt to rescue his sister. n 2.32am A taxi driver dials 999. A flurry of calls follows.
The burnt out remains of number 210 Chatham Hill
n 2.34am Muhammadi calls Emma Smith from Mahmud’s phone for 59 seconds. She claims he tells her to dial 999.
Bohdan Crook
n 2.35am Crews from Medway Fire Station, Watling Street, arrive on the scene. Several neighbours try to help. n 2.36am Emma Smith calls 999 and says there is a house on fire in Chatham Hill. n 2.47am Megane clocked heading down Blue Bell Hill out of Chatham. n 2.55am Megane arrives at Mahmud’s flat where Muhammadi gives him the petrol can and garden sprayer. n 3am Smith joins Muhammadi and they drive back to Coventry. n 3am - 9am By now firefighters have found the bodies of Melissa and Noah next to her upturned bed. Mark, Amanda and Bohdan Crook, who all escaped, are taken to hospital. Firefighters damp down the house and police and forensic experts take the first photos of the damage.
Tributes outside the home where Melissa and Noah died
n 6am Smith and Muhammadi arrive at his home in Britannia Street, Coventry.
a note with “arrest?” on it under the table and they arrest her.
Tuesday, September 13 Muhammadi and Mahmud are charged with murder, after
Muhammadi remains silent and Mahmud gives conflicting accounts. Smith is charged with murder after officers confront her with her own 999 call.
September 23 and October 1
The garden sprayer used in the arson attack
Friends visit Farhad Mahmud in Elmley Prison on the Isle of Sheppey. He tells them the fire was an insurance scam gone wrong.
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Friday, September 16 Mark Crook, 49, right, dies in the burns unit at East Grinstead Hospital.
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October 18 Hundreds attend funeral at St Augustine’s Church, Gillingham. Firefighters lower their station flag to half mast. Melissa and Noah are buried in the same coffin and only one Bible verse is read: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
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CHATHAM HILL MURDERS: NIGHT OF HORROR
Scenes of terror followed ordinary family evening
The aftermath of house fire in Chatham Hill
IT WAS a balmy Friday night when a petrol-fuelled blaze ripped through 210 Chatham Hill. Hours earlier, Melissa Crook was chatting excitedly with her mum Amanda about a job interview the next Monday. She had struggled to find work since leaving her husband and was looking forward to a new start. “She was trying on all mum’s clothes and raided my wardrobe,” said Mrs Crook. “We sat chatting until about half past 10.” Her mother went to bed and she remained with her brother Bohdan. It was the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, so they chatted about conspiracy theories until he fell asleep on the sofa. Mark Crook roused his son and they all went upstairs. At 2.30am, there was a soft “whoof” as Danai Muhammadi and Farhad Mahmud ignited seven litres of petrol squirted through the letterbox using a weedkill sprayer. Fire ripped through the mist of fuel fumes and spread up the stairs, blocking the escape route. Amanda Crook was the first
to wake. Her bedroom door was always open and she opened her eyes to see pink flames. “As I came to the bedroom door you couldn’t come past,” she told the trial. “It was there, the whole of the ceiling, the whole of the hall.” She woke her husband and they screamed to Melissa and Bohdan to get out. Bohdan woke immediately. His floor was hot. His first
thought was for his sister, and he wrenched open his door. Battling the flames, “I went to open her door and, nothing. I couldn’t push it down. The more I put pressure on it the more it didn’t go.” Melissa Crook had woken but could not escape. A clothes airer may have blocked the door. She grabbed Noah from his cot. Neighbours saw her and heard her shouting “help, help”, but she was overcome by smoke seconds before they smashed her window. Firefighters found the bodies next to her upturned bed. Bohdan, Amanda and Mark had escaped. Bohdan, wearing only his boxer shorts, flung himself from his first-floor window onto the drive, breaking his right heel and three bones in his left foot. Amanda climbed through her bedroom window onto the flat kitchen roof. Her husband was close behind. Jurors wept as she told them: “Mark got stuck in the window. “I stood and watched him burn. I stood and watched the window melt around him and it was only
when the window melted that he could get through.” Mark Crook suffered 80% burns. Neighbour Joseph Pranczke, who heard their screams, rescued the couple by putting a ladder to the flat roof. “He was shouting to get the children,” Mr Pranczke said. “Halfway down the ladder, it must have been the pain, he threw himself backwards.” Mr Crook died six days later at East Grinstead Hospital. After their escape, the two survivors were in shock as neighbours, pub-goers, firefighters, paramedics and police rushed to help. Bohdan Crook helped two Eastern European bystanders smash his sister’s window, shouting “just give me the baby”. Then he blacked out. Amanda Crook rushed from the back of the house, screaming for firefighters to let her in, then looked down the street. It hit her: she knew her daughter and grandson were dead. Today the house still is a blackened shell, the windows and doors covered by metal sheeting.
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CHATHAM HILL MURDERS Long waiting list of women seeking help over abuse WHEN Danai Muhammadi hit her, Melissa Crook made the instant decision she would not let her baby grow up around him. She left forever. Tragically, it began a chain of events which led to her murder, but other women suffer for years. Medway police hear of 4,000 domestic abuse incidents a year and one in six men are said to be involved. Many victims never call police as they do not want to “report” those they love. Medway Citizens’ Advice Bureau has secured funding through Medway Council for two “advocates”, trained staff who stop abused women retracting their statements. One is at Medway Maritime Hospital to pick up the warning signs, and the other is at Medway Magistrates’ Court to see justice is done. Muhammadi insisted his anger issues were not serious. He told the court: “It’s not a permanent sickness. Like many other human beings life is not always full of happiness. You get pain, you get stresses.”
The terrible aftermath of the intense inferno at the Crook’s home in Chatham
Graphics: Ashley Austen
2 Melissa Crook’s brother, Bohdan, injures himself leaping from his bedroom window. He helps smash Melissa’s window and shouts ‘give me the baby’.
3 Mark Crook and his wife Amanda escape from their bedroom window onto a flat roof at the back of the house. A neighbour pitches a ladder to rescue them, but Mark dies of severe burns six days later.
How the blaze took hold 3
4 2
1 On Saturday, September 10, 2011 at 2.30am, Muhammadi and Mahmud allegedly squirt petrol through the front door with a garden sprayer. A blaze soon takes hold.
1 4 Melissa Crook and her son, 15-month-old Noah, are trapped in her bedroom as the blaze takes hold. Melissa is still cradling Noah in her arms when she loses consciousness. The pair are found dead by firefighters.
Police photos of the crime scene: Staircase; hallway through front door
‘Life is not always full of happiness. You get pain, you get stresses’ But Medway Domestic Abuse Forum chairman Angela Howe said: “It’s not an anger problem, it’s a control problem. “Quite often we have somebody who’s very abusive within the house but perfectly normal outside.” Muhammadi was controlling. He told the court he “let” Melissa get a job months after she left him. On April 13, scores of Forum members marched through Rochester High Street to take a stand against abuse. Melissa’s killing came just a month after Agris Titans, 25, had strangled his estranged wife Edite, 22, in a drunken rage at her home in Rochester. Two weeks after that murder, twisted, controlling killer Marcus Coates, 44, strangled his friend and former prostitute Jennie Banner, 32, with a belt at her Chatham High Street flat. Ms Howe said: “In Medway we have a large waiting list for victims, because we don’t get enough money from the council and charities to help all the women we want to.” If you think you have been a victim of abuse call 101, or 999 in an emergency. Medway Council provides an online list of services at medway.gov.uk/domesticabuse and in libraries. Email the police’s abuse team at domestic.violence.dz @kent. pnn.police.uk or call an our-ofhours helpline on 01634 304400.
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THE KILLER HUSBAND
Fairytale romance ended in murder IT SOUNDED like a heartbroken plea from one lover to another. Eleven days before he killed his wife and son, Danai Muhammadi sent Melissa a text which now sounds chilling. He wrote. “I’m really sorry if I wind you up, but til this evening I tried and I’m sick of waiting for you to forgive me for what I did. “Please, every single night you close your eyes you can see me or you think of me. If I’m wrong after 10 years let me know.” It was typical of a stormy relationship filled with rows and passionate reconciliations. Melissa Crook admitted she still loved her husband. “You are always there in my head,” she replied. But she had left him when he came home one night, last March 31, and punched and spat at her after “pestering her for sex”. He claimed it was the first time he hit her, but Melissa told a different story. She confided in her mother, who later saw Muhammadi throw a table across a room. And her brother Bohdan said he had been “controlling”. “If he said ‘make me a cheese sandwich’, she would get up and do it,” he told the trial. Muhammadi was Melissa’s only real boyfriend, her “fairy tale”. She was just 13 or 14 when she met him through a friend of
‘We gave our blessing. We thought she was safe’
Melissa and Danai Muhammadi’s wedding certificate hers who was dating a pal of Muhammadi’s. Melissa would finish classes at Upbury Manor School, now Brompton Academy, and wait for her new love to arrive from Maidstone on the bus.
Awkward But while Melissa was boisterous and gossipy, always cracking jokes with friends, her Middle Eastern boyfriend remained quiet, brooding and introverted. His Christmas visits to Chatham were awkward, with him sitting silently in the corner, that he stayed in Coventry in December 2010. Even so, Melissa’s parents did their best to make him welcome. “He called me mum,” said Amanda Crook. She told the trial: “Melissa came home one day and said
‘Sam and I are moving to Coventry’. She had made her mind up. “We gave our blessing. We knew where she was and we thought she was safe.” The couple moved in with Muhammadi’s brother Osman, then rented their own terraced home in Britannia Street, Coventry. Breaking with tradition, the Muslim man’s girlfriend was the one who proposed to him. She invited him to dinner with her family in Chatham where she popped the question. They wed in Rochester’s Corn Exchange in September 2009, when Melissa had just turned 18. Muhammadi was against a big church wedding. Just eight months later, they had a surprise addition to their relationship: baby Noah. Doctors had told Melissa she
could not conceive, so she was unprepared. But she was a devoted mother, dedicating everything to her baby. She was also a devoted wife, often visiting the garage where her husband worked to drop off his lunch. They were saving for a deposit on a house. But after her husband punched her, she put the baby first. The trial heard “she would have gone back to him tomorrow if not for Noah” – she didn’t want him growing up around violence. Over her last summer she scolded Muhammadi for not seeing Noah enough. He only drove from Coventry a couple of times a month though the couple exchanged many calls and texts. He claimed his son meant everything to him, complaining when Melissa did anything he thought was bad for Noah. He grew bitter, telling her: “If I can’t have you, no one will”. By the end, Melissa listed herself as ‘divorced’ on Facebook. Her profile said: “My fairy tale didn’t work, but second time lucky hey?”
Danai Muhammadi - grew increasingly angry and bitter
Bright but unhinged. The charmer whose mask slipped DANAI Saman Muhammadi has thrown away the new life Britain offered him after the former Kurd fled Saddam Hussein’s persecution of his people in Iraq and then from Iran where he had been adopted. He brutally betrayed a family that had first disapproved of his relationship to Melissa Crook and then taken him in as one of their own. On realising that Muhammadi’s son and wife had died in the fire, his mother-in-law Amanda’s first thoughts were of him. She and her surviving son Bohdan had not wanted him to find out via the news. Then came the chilling reality that the son-in-law she called ‘Sam’ was a suspect. The next time she saw him was when he was in the dock at court seven in Maidstone Crown Court – accused of killing three members of her family. Short, slight and softly-spoken, Muhammadi spent six days in the witness box clashing with top barristers. ‘Danny’, to his workmates, ‘Danai’ to his family and ‘Sammy’ to his wife, he is highly intelligent and holds his emotions close. But the 5ft 10in murderer betrayed flashes of the “twisted and unbalanced” young father who killed his child. Dressed in a dark suit, when cornered he would cry, laugh and roll his eyes. The time he shouted from the witness box “are you stupid?” to a defence barrister, the court
froze. He changed back to the calm professional in an instant. Born in Kurdistan, his adopted family in Iran gave him the name Muhammadi. His birth parents later found him and sent him more than £15,000 to help buy a marital home for him and Melissa. He spent £11,000 of it on a Vauxhall Astra. Friends said Muhammadi was a quiet, studious young man who couldn’t fit in with his boisterous British friends. He got into fights, once being taken to hospital but he said he was a “private person” and violence was out of character. But there was another side.
Kicked Melissa’s brother Bohdan said Muhammadi offered him £3,500 to throw acid in someone’s face. Her mother Amanda said he once kicked a table when Melissa answered the door for him, missing Noah by inches. And a colleague at Andrew’s Garage in Coventry, Pakwah So, said he talked about throwing chemicals in Melissa’s face to “mess up her life”. In the days before the blaze, Andrew’s staff said he behaved erratically and told them Melissa had been hurt in a fire. He was on medication for anxiety and had an “appropriate adult” after arrest as police feared he could be “mentally unstable.” His behaviour was erratic. After he was arrested he began to cry, said DC Ian Godsmark,
but after a minute: “He looked up, wiped his eyes and said ‘I will not cry any more now.’” Muhammadi moved to Britain aged 18 in 2005, reaching Hull where he worked in chicken and cucumber factories. From there he moved to London and worked at a petrol station before settling in Kingfisher Meadow, Hart Street, Maidstone, where he worked on the 20/20 estate in Allington. His brother Osman was already in the UK but Danai knew next to no English, learning through college courses and dictionaries. By the time he reached court he was correcting his interpreter, though at points he claimed not to understand the words “murder” or “victim” or how to use the internet. Osman invited his brother to join him in Coventry in summer 2007, so he took his young girlfriend Melissa, who he had met in Maidstone. Living with her in Osman’s home in Adderley Street, he was hired as a car salesman on £1,000 a month at nearby Andrew’s. Owner Ian Scott-Lazarus described Muhammadi as “one of the most intelligent, well-educated people I know, and he’s got an extremely good memory.” Muhammadi swore on the Koran and was given 20 minutes to read a crucial passage before he gave evidence. The court heard he could not stand the shame of divorce. He believed in destiny, a theme he returned to in the witness box.
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GUILTY PAIR
From petty thief to killer EMMA Smith’s first brush with the law came aged 14 when she faked a sponsored walk and spent donations on herself. Seven years later she is a convicted multiple killer. She looked nervous and meek in court, dressed in loose-fitting white and pink tops with her hair tied back. Her single-word answers, whispered “yes” and “no”, were nothing like Muhammadi’s rants. There were some similiarities between the 21-year-old and Melissa Crook. They were almost the same age and both had young sons by abusive husbands. They were known for their strong wills and sharp tongues, and they exchanged “deeply offensive” texts peppered with foul language. But while Melissa had a strong family, Smith, who left her alcoholic Big Issue seller father to live in The Grange children’s home in Coventry, was forever in trouble. After her charity con, the then Emma Harrison was convicted of criminal damage and assault at least three times in attempts to flee the children’s home. That escape finally came, aged 15, when she moved in with 18-year-old council binman David Smith. She left school with no qualifications, had a son, Lewis, in January 2008 and moved into a council flat in The Barley Lea, Coventry. Smith has a tattoo of Lewis’ name next to a mouse holding a balloon on her right arm. The couple wed in November
Emma Smith – troubled 2010 but it fell apart after a few months amid domestic violence. David Smith left overnight taking Lewis, and all their furniture, with him. They were still locked in a fierce dispute over their son as the summer rolled on. When she met Muhammadi by chance at a bus stop last August, the car salesman seemed to offer a new life. They began having unprotected sex within two weeks, she said, and saw each other almost daily. She called and texted him more than 730 times before the fire and would go round to his house regularly. She had ongoing health problems, regularly throwing up including on the night of the fire, during police interviews and in court.
For that reason she was subdued but the court heard she was “volatile”, texting Melissa jealously and constantly changing her Facebook status. “I change it about once a month,” she told police. “I put it as married, single, in a relationship, I do it every month.” She dyed her hair blonde and black and regularly posted photos of herself online. Her last update before being arrested showed her going from “in a relationship” to “single”, a few hours after the fire. She prostituted herself to a Romanian car wash worker called George four times behind Muhammadi’s back, claiming it was to buy furniture so she could win her son back. “The only way I could get money was by doing that because I couldn’t get a job,” she said. Rachel Southworth, a charity worker in the Shaftesbury Young People project for deprived youths, said Smith could be “extremely aggressive. Once she started down a route, good or a bad, she would always follow that through,” she told the trial. Smith had won an award for “trying her best to be a good mum”, she said, but added: “She would make independent decisions but she was always influenced strongly by her partner. Smith was not in Chatham at the time of the fire, so her conviction for manslaughter rested on the theory of ‘joint enterprise’. It had to be proven that she knew about the fire before it was set.
Bouncer played pivotal role QUIET killer Farhad “Fred” Mahmud was a lazy nightclub bouncer who spent more time chatting up women than doing his job, says a former boss. Just 5ft 6in with a thin crop of receding hair, his slight frame hid a bulk of muscle, honed during weightlifting sessions at his Maidstone flat. A former employer, who did not want to be named, said: “I had to sack him as he was rubbish at his job. He just hung around and chatted to women all night.” But colleague Ben Painter was shocked at Mahmud’s arrest, telling police: “I would describe him as a reliable, nice guy.” Mr Painter’s girlfriend said he “wouldn’t hurt a fly”. Mahmud is thought to have fled to Britain illegally from Iraq in 2003 after war broke out. Little is known about his past but he told police: “I’m not agreeing with the killing, I saw people dying already in my country, I don’t want to see that again.” He settled in Maidstone where first he was a forklift truck driver then a security guard, employed at bars across the county town. They included Lidl in Tonbridge Road, Liquid in Barker Road, Chicago’s in the High Street and
Farhad Mahmud Babylon in King Street, where he worked the night of the fire. Photos on Facebook, where he said he studied law in Iraq, showed him smiling and surrounded by friends in Brighton and a boat trip on the Medway. Mahmud paid £78 a week rent and often had Kurdish friends to his flat, though he also said he liked his own company. At first he told police he and Muhammadi had discussed his favourite topics all night: “life”, “food” and “girls”. He added: “When I go clubbing I wanna be like little bit free and I don’t get involved with other people’s lives.” He bonded with Muhammadi
when they worked at a bakery on the 20/20 estate in Allington, Maidstone. The fellow Kurdish refugee visited him a few times a year and even bought a car on Mahmud’s behalf, but he talked very little about his marriage, Mahmud said. Mahmud had no girlfriend. He told police: “I don’t mix with people”. He remained inscrutable throughout the court case, except for momentary lapses. Once he imitated the shrugging shoulders of prosecutor Mark Dennis QC with a smirk. He refused to give evidence after watching Muhammadi contradict his story for six agonising days. But he was happy to loudly question the skills of interpreter Dylan Sorani mid-way through translating for his friend. Prosecutors say the killer was offered “blood money”, which could have been up to £10,000, to help set the fire. He had never met Melissa but his flat was a stop-off point for the murderer. Friends claimed he would have had to go with Muhammadi whether he liked it or not, because Kurdish custom meant he could not stay alone with Emma Smith.
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THE VICTIMS
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BOND: Chatham Hill fire survivors Bohdan Crook, 22, and his mum Amanda Crook, 50, talk about their ordeal; Top, the family give their reaction outside court after the verdicts
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Mother and son bound by tragedy but determined not to let the killers win THEY don’t know how they survived the fire which claimed the lives of three generations of their family. But Amanda and Bohdan Crook have stood together throughout the ordeal that followed that night nine months ago. A harrowing six-week trial began with both having to relive scenes of both unimaginable horror and then despair as both realised quickly that Melissa and Noah had succumbed to the inferno and Mark was gravely ill. It ended in scenes of high emotion as three people were found guilty of the killings. Days before the verdicts they sat and told their stories to a selected group of journalists including the Messenger’s Dan Bloom. Mrs Crook said: “When people say they have nothing, they have no idea what nothing is. “We have no photographs, we’ve got no possessions. There’s nothing of Melissa’s, there’s nothing of Mark’s really, there’s nothing of mine.” The sense of loss can sometimes hit them unexpectedly in everyday activities. Mrs Crook said: “You’ll be in the middle of a shop and all of a sudden it’s ping, and you’re back. You might have forgotten for a couple of hours and you’re back.
If we give in they’ve won. They’ve taken more than enough from us, they’re not going to take our futures’ “At Christmas I bought the ‘For Grandson’ card because that’s what I do. You forget for a little while and it’s only when you do things like that you think, ‘I don’t need that any more’.” Bohdan, a caterer, has left Chatham for a new start but shares an unbreakable bond with his mother. The pair have promised not to let their lives be destroyed. “We’re going to live as positively as possible because that’s how they would have wanted it,” Bohdan said. His mother added: “If we give in they’ve won, they’ve taken something else. “They’ve taken more than enough from us, they’re not going to take our futures. “Bohdie’ll text me and go ‘mum, are you having a bad day today?’ and I’m like ‘yeah’. He just knows, he’s at the other end of the country but he knows.” “We just get each other,” her son said, smiling at her. “It’s ‘cause you’re my baby!” she replied. “My baby boy!” Speaking of the trial, Mrs Crook said: “We’re back to
day one again. We’re back to the day it happened every day. It just brings everything back up.” “It’s massive for the family because we just want justice,” her son added. We want the right people away so they don’t do it again, try to hurt anyone else.” They spoke of Muhammadi’s betrayal. “All I kept begging of my mum was to phone Sam [Muhammadi] and tell Sam, don’t let him find out on the news,” Mrs Crook said. “Then to find out Sunday morning that he had something to do with it was gutwrenching. We all felt sick.” Bohdan added: “I think he’s sick. I think what he did was just wrong. We weren’t just anyone, we were family. “He’s taken away our whole lives, just because of his greed, and that’s all it was. It was his greed.” Mrs Crook said: “There’s days when you just can’t believe it, there’s still days when it’s not real, it’s not happened, and you’re going to wake up.”
“It turns your life completely upside down,” her son said. “Dad’s not there when you get home now, Mel’s not going to pop down the shop for me.” On the night fire ripped through their home, Amanda and Bohdan Crook tried to save the rest of their family but could not get to them. “I woke up and above my head were pink flames and it took a good few seconds to realise exactly what it was,” she said. “It’s an age-old thing, how could a mum walk away from a house and leave her kids in? But I couldn’t, I couldn’t get to them. “I got through the window, and Mark got stuck,” she said. He was trapped in a window and died later of horrific burns. She added: “I saw Bohdan, looked up at the bedroom window and and I knew they hadn’t made it. That moment no one needed to tell me. “It was only afterwards we realised that people up and down the street had tried to save them.” They gave thanks to the firefighters, paramedics, police, neighbours, friends and family who tried to help. “Even the people who were quiet,” she said. “It was nice just to be quiet sometimes without talking about it and going over it, you know, someone making a cup of tea.”
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THE VICTIMS
The day Noah was born was perfect ... brilliant MELISSA Crook was the youngest of four children, “boisterous”, “reckless but respectful” and “her dad’s little girl”, the survivors said. As a pupil at Gillingham’s Upbury Manor school, she was “a rebel” who hated homework, her mother said. Mother Amanda explained: “When I was in labour with her I fell asleep, and the joke was it was two pushes and she was out. So she brought herself into this world, that’s what she used to tell everybody. “Melissa was a snail, you could tell from the age of two what she’d done, where she’d been during the day and she never changed as she got older, there was always a snail trail behind her.” Her parents disapproved of the union with Muhammadi but welcomed him to the family to avoid a rift. Doctors had told Melissa she couldn’t conceive so when she fell pregnant unexpectedly, Mrs Crook said, she calmed down – but her baby boy was just as messy. She said: “I’d come home from work and I’d go upstairs and he’d had all my cupboards out. I used
to shout down to her ‘Melissa, I’ve been Noah’ed!’ and she’d shout back up the stairs, ‘My son’s not a verb!’. “She was still boisterous, she was still bloody-minded, she was still Melissa but just much softer. She would have done absolutely anything for Noah.”
Budding footballer The day the baby was born, Mrs Crook said: “I was there, it was me and her. Everything was perfect. I cut his cord. It was a brilliant day, a brilliant day.” Melissa’s brother Bohdan said the toddler was a budding footballer praising his astonishing “left foot”. He said: “He could clear a ball halfway across Gillingham Park.” Mark Crook, who managed a warehouse at a photocopier supply firm in Maidstone, was a 26-stone joker who lived for his job, Chelsea FC, Elvis Presley tunes and his family. “His son said. “You weren’t allowed in Crooky’s warehouse without his permission. He ran that warehouse how he wanted it and no one crossed that line.” The larger than life persona was a far cry from the tiny 2lb premature baby which entered
‘The big guy in the pinny. Nothing would beat Dad’ the world 49 years earlier. His fighting qualities were needed later in life when he was diagnosed with cancer of the lymph nodes when his children were at Byron Primary School, Gillingham, having six glands removed from his neck. He fought back, beat the the illness and worked as a cook at the school, where he insisted on calling himself a “dinner lady”. “Kids still remembered him,” joked Bohdan. “The big guy in the pinny! Nothing would beat Dad. He fought from the day he was born. My nan used to say he looked like a plucked chicken that day.” Raised in Walderslade, the life-long Chelsea supporter and Elvis fan was in the first intake of Chatham South school (now the Bishop of Rochester Academy). He called a wall he built at home “the great wall of Chatham” and had an Elvis alarm clock.
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CLOSE FAMILY: back row, siblings Melissa Crook, Blake Acton, Charlotte Acton, Bohdan Crook. Front, parents Mark and Amanda Crook He met Gillingham-born Amanda through a cousin and they wed in 1989. Amanda had two children, Blake and Charlotte Acton, by a previous marriage but Mark treated them as his own. All four moved into 210 Chatham Hill 26 years ago. The family worked in every job imaginable. Mark managed a warehouse for Maidstone office supply firm The KPS Group. Melissa had taken a course in business administration. Amanda worked in procurement for the government, and Blake
worked in Watling Street eatery Rowlands Bistro. Their terraced house in Chatham Hill was a vibrant family home filled with grown-up children and constant visitors. Four generations were headed by Amanda’s father, the charismatic, pipe-smoking former Sapper at Kitchener Barracks Tony Thornburn, 72. Living with his wife Pam, 73, in Holmside, Gillingham, he and the Crooks exchanged regular visits while Melissa blasted Kenny Rogers from the stereo. Handprints on the Wall by
the ageing country singer was played for Melissa during the triple funeral at St Augustine’s Church in Rock Avenue, Gillingham. So the pain of the fire was made worse because 210 Chatham Hill was such a strong family base. “They didn’t just take our family,” Bohdan said. “They took our family home as well.” The community has rallied to support the Crooks. When the trio died, Chatham Town FC held a memorial match in their honour and Medway Fire Station flew their flags at half mast.
6
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CHATHAM HILL MURDERS: THE SENTENCING
86 YEARS
38 YEARS: Danai Muhammadi, ‘pure selfish wickedness’
It’s justice, but it does not bring them back EXCLUSIVE by Dan Bloom dbloom@thekmgroup.co.uk
34 YEARS: Farhad Mahmud, simpleton ‘in it for the money’
14 YEARS: Emma Smith, ‘a liar on an epic scale’
“JUSTICE has been done in the eyes of the law, but if there was any justice this wouldn’t have happened.” Those are the words of Amanda Crook, whose son-inlaw has been jailed for at least 38 years for murdering three generations of her family in an arson attack. Mrs Crook, 50, escaped her Chatham home last year but the blaze killed her husband Mark, 49, daughter Melissa, 20, and 15-month-old grandson Noah. “I’m still reeling, I’m still trying to take it all in,” she said. “I feel like I’m still living somebody else’s life, somebody else’s dream and I’m going to wake up in a minute. “Thirty-eight years [for Muhammadi], that means Noah would have been 40. Put that into context.” A High Court judge told car salesman Danai Muhammadi he was driven by “pure, selfish wickedness” as he gave him a life sentence with a 38-year minimum term this week. Emotionless, Muhammadi gathered a bundle of papers from the floor before leaving the dock. Nine of the jurors who tried him looked on. Maidstone Crown Court heard he “denied and continues to deny” the three murders and two attempted murders. He will be 61 when he is first considered for release. His accomplice, Maidstone nightclub bouncer Farhad Mahmud, 35, was jailed for life with a 34-year minimum term after being found guilty on the same charges. The pair used a garden weedkiller sprayer to squirt petrol through the Crooks’ letterbox
‘There’s a hole no one’s ever going to be able to fill so whatever happens to those three, it’s not going to bring back Amanda Crook three people we loved’ onto their stairs in the early hours of September 10, blocking any chance of escape. Judge Mr Justice Sweeney said the Crooks were suffering “significant and ongoing injury.” He added: “I pay tribute to them and the way all of them have conducted themselves with dignity and forbearance throughout this case.”
Mrs Crook said: “It was very nice to hear, but no comfort. We’re close family, we support each other. We just acted like we normally did. “There will never be closure. However long a sentence they got, it wasn’t like ‘if you get 30 years you can get one back’. “There’s a nothingness we’re left with. There’s a hole no one’s ever going to be able to fill so
whatever happens to those three, it’s not going to bring back three people we loved. “You still feel like you’re living on a film set and every so often someone’s going to go ‘cut’, and this isn’t my life and my reality, but it is.” Her father, former Sapper Tony Thornburn, 72, added: “I think the result reflects the last page of a very dark chapter in the book, but it doesn’t close the book. “The book, as far as the family are concerned, will always be open. But at least we can close this chapter with some feeling of justice.” Muhammadi drove 140 miles from his Coventry home to torch number 210 Chatham Hill. Melissa had left him last year because he had punched her after she refused him sex. They met when Melissa was a pupil at Upbury Manor School, now Brompton Academy, and they married when she was 18. Muhammadi admitted his anger problems after the breakup, but the court found him sane this week. “[Your] decision was not the product of any mental illness,” the judge told him. “It was a decision reached, in my view, out of anger, spite and resentment. “You were clearly controlling by nature and Melissa, as she was absolutely entitled to be, was not a young woman to be controlled.” When Melissa left Muhammadi, the judge told him: “Your control gone, and your pride wounded, you tried to get her back [but were] rebuffed again. “If she didn’t return to you then no one was going to have either her or Noah.” The judge described the terrifying fire, which Amanda Crook and her son Bohdan, 22, escaped. “No one who heard the evi-
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CHATHAM HILL MURDERS: THE SENTENCING
‘I’ve yet to see a spark of genuine remorse’
VICTIMS: Melissa Crook and dad Mark Crook on her wedding day in September 2009. Right, Melissa’s son Noah, who was 15 months when he died
A long time to reflect on crime DCI Dave Chewter, who led the case, told the Messenger: “I’m very pleased. “The sentences are substantial, and reflect the gravity of the case. “These people will be in prison for a long time to think about what they’ve done.”
MAIDSTONE Crown Court heard two hours of mitigation for the trio on Monday. Timothy Barnes QC, for Muhammadi, of Britannia Street, Coventry, said he was clearly the “prime mover” but “cultural differences” played a part as Melissa left a “stain on his honour”. Muhammadi is a Muslim. “It was difficult for Mr Muhammadi to accept, from his background, the type of freedoms which she would accept quite rightly as part and parcel of the marriage,” he said. “He was distraught, emotional and confused, not a coldblooded killer.” He added: “It might be said that a murder of a stranger has an aggravating feature every bit as serious as murder in a domestic setting.” Ian Glen QC, for Mahmud, of Fernhill Road, Maidstone, said the bouncer was “a passenger on the night, during the trial and even now”. He added: “His presence was
‘This rather simpleminded man made a disastrous and impulsive decision to go along with his compatriot’ not necessary and we would submit the offence would still have taken place without him. “This rather simple-minded man made a disastrous and impulsive decision to go along with his compatriot. It may have been some misguided loyalty.” Alan Kent QC, for Smith, of The Barley Lea, Coventry, said she had a very low IQ and played a “minimal role” in the attack. She had a “deprived” childhood, he said: “Deprived of love, of affection, of structure and of stability. A young girl brought up within, and rebelling against,
Acting head of the CPS South East complex casework unit Paul Chamberlain said: “Although nothing will ever compensate them for their appalling loss, I hope Amanda and Bohdan Crook will take some comfort in the fact that those responsible for this awful crime have been brought to justice.” dence in this case will ever forget Mrs Crook’s description of how in trying to escape, her husband became stuck in their bedroom window,” he said. “Unable to extricate himself, she had to stand and watch as his lower half was burned by the fire, with that part of the ordeal only coming to an end when an explosion blew out the window frame. “Melissa and Noah’s last moments, and certainly Melissa’s, must have been ones of abject terror. “You quickly left the scene in the Megane but stopped to observe what you had done from a safe distance. It was only then that a 999 call was initiated. “That call had nothing to do with saving life. Rather it was
the care home system. Once released it is her intention to become a hairdresser or a beautician. She wants to provide for her son.” Muhammadi had “used” Smith, the judge admitted, telling her: “On any view you have had a very difficult young life.” But he said: “You tried to bluff your way out, including telling lies in your interview on something of an epic scale. You fought the case and in you, too, I have yet to see a spark of genuine remorse.” He added that had “no doubt whatsoever” that Smith had written a volley of abusive texts to Melissa. She had denied writing the texts, which included insults about Melissa’s weight and the phrase “you’re on thin ice with me”. The judge also singled out taxi driver Indrit Arapi, the only person who saw the men with the petrol container in Chatham Hill, for special praise, saying his evidence was vital.
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DEVASTATING: The aftermath at 210 Chatham Hill simply a long-stop for you two to rely on if you were caught to try and suggest that you had no intention to kill.” To Mahmud, he said: “You did it principally for the money that you hoped to make.” Muhammadi brought his new girlfriend, Emma Smith, now 22, with him. The judge described how they “cavorted” hours before the fire boasting how “Melissa lost”. Smith, who remained in Maidstone during the attack but dialled 999, was jailed for 14 years on three counts of manslaughter. The judge told her: “Any reasonable person would have realised that setting fire to the
How Muhammadi’s 38-year minimum term compares with sentences for other high-profile killers. Fewer than 50 prisoners in Britain have “whole life” tariffs.
house risked some injury.” He added that none of the trio had shown “even a spark of remorse”. Speaking at his home in Holmside, Gillingham, Melissa’s grandfather, Mr Thornburn, said: “We’ve got through it as a close family but also, to a certain extent, with the help and the comfort we’ve all received from outsiders. “From family, from friends and from everybody – the police who have been absolutely magnificent, victim support and the Medway Messenger. “There are a lot of people locally, even nationally, who will look at the sentences as justice.”
20 YEARS
Minimum term for Vincent Tabak, who killed landscape architect Jo Yeates in her Bristol flat.
30 YEARS
Minimum term for Malcolm Webster, who killed his wife Claire Morris, from Upchurch, in a staged car crash and was convicted 17 years later.
40 YEARS NEVER RELEASED
Minimum term for Ian Huntley, the school caretaker who famously murdered pupils Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman. Recommendation for Levi Bellfield, the nightclub bouncer who killed three women including the teenager Milly Dowler.
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