Lottery winner ‘killed two sons and himself and stabbed wife after she found out he paid for prostitutes’

A lottery winner is reported to have stabbed his wife after she found out he’d spent the money on prostitutes, then killed his two sons and himself.

David Stokes, 43, was found with a knife in his chest at his home in Hinckley, Leicestershire, after barricading himself inside with his family for five hours on November 2, 2016, an inquest has heard.

According to the Mirror, his sons Adam, 11, and Matthew, five, were found dead together in a bed, holding hands. A post-mortem examination was unable to determine how they died, but a pathologist said it could have been a result of drowning or pressure to the neck.

Stokes’s estranged wife and the children’s mother, Sally Stokes, escaped the house after being held hostage and stabbed by her husband, the inquest at Loughborough Coroner’s Court heard on Monday.

Mrs Stokes, 47, said he hit her with a rolling pin and tried to suffocate her with a pillow before stabbing her in the side, Leicestershire Live reported.

Stokes had won £40,000 on the lottery and spent the winnings on a new car and prostitutes, the inquest reportedly heard.

Mrs Stokes said he had been abusive in the past and had been on the internet looking at sites for escorts and date rape drugs before holding the family hostage.

She told the inquest she suspected he had given her a date rape drug after waking up the morning after a Halloween party feeling “spaced out”.

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Mrs Stokes, a pub assistant manager, had been married to Stokes, an electrician since 2011, but their relationship had deteriorated.

She said Stokes attacked her in the house after she went upstairs to get changed.

After police arrived and the situation had become a siege, he stabbed her in the side, the inquest heard.

“I felt a bump in my back,” she said, according to the BBC. “I felt the warmth and put my hand there and realised he had stabbed me.”

She then fled down the stairs and escaped through the front door. She was told the next day about the deaths of her sons and her husband.

A post-mortem revealed Stokes had died from a stab wound to the chest.

The inquest continues.