Murderer chopped up landlord’s body and ‘fed him to the badgers’

A tenant who chopped up his landlord’s body into ten pieces and “fed him to the badgers” has been found guilty of murder.

Daniel Walsh, 30, killed 71-year-old Graham Snell after the pensioner caught him stealing from his bank account in June last year.

He then used his savings to go on a drinks-and-drugs binge in Sheffield where he gambled at casinos and visited massage parlours, a court heard.

Police were due to the visit the property in Marsden Street, Chesterfield, the next morning after Mr Snell alerted them his lodger had accessed his bank account.

But Walsh killed him during the night of 19/20 June, 2019 before taking a taxi to a DIY shop to buy two handsaws, building sacks and a burning bin.

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Derbyshire Crown Court heard Walsh used the tools to dismember his victim into ten pieces.

Walsh stuffed most of the pieces into a badger set in remote woodland and dumped the rest in communal bins outside a flat he had previously lived in.

It took him six months to tell police where he had left the head.

He claimed he found Mr Snell collapsed dead in the bathroom after binge drinking and he panicked he would be suspected of killing him because he had been taking cocaine.

He was arrested on 30 June 2019 after neighbours reported Mr Snell missing.

Walsh had attempted to obtain an emergency passport to flee the country and initially told police Mr Snell was in hospital.

Peter Joyce QC, prosecuting, said: “The cause of death is unascertainable because there were so many body parts, but we know what he did.

"He killed him, he chopped him up and fed him to the badgers. It was murder to get his hands on this man’s money.”

Mr Joyce described Walsh’s account as “complete and utter nonsense”.

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Following a three-week trial at Derby Crown Court, the jury took just over an hour to return a unanimous guilty verdict on all charges.

Detective Chief Inspector Sally Blaiklock, who led the murder investigation, added: “The depraved acts that Daniel Walsh carried out on Graham Snell, a retired pensioner; a quiet man and a good neighbour, are truly shocking.

“To compound that this is that they were carried out for his own self-preservation and so he could spend Graham’s small amount of savings at massage parlours, in casinos and on drink and drugs.”