Murder accused claims he overheard strangers talking about couple’s wealth

Romanian national Vasile Culea denies the murder of Freda Walker but has admitted her manslaughter.

Flowers outside a house on Station Road, Langwith Junction, near Bolsover, where Freda Walker 88 died (PA) (PA Archive)

An intruder charged with murdering an 86-year-old woman and trying to kill her husband has told a jury he planned to search for cash at their home after overhearing two strangers talking about a “wealthy house” in their village.

Vasile Culea is accused of intending death or at least serious harm when he attacked, gagged, “hog-tied” and then abandoned Freda and Kenneth Walker to their fate while looking for £30,000 in cash.

The 34-year-old denies charges of murder, attempted murder and wounding with intent but admits causing some harm to Mr and Mrs Walker, who suffered “frankly horrific” injuries at their home in Derbyshire, the court was told.

Jurors at Derby Crown Court have heard claims that retired seamstress Mrs Walker had a reasonable prospect of survival had she not been left “without any assistance”, along with town councillor Mr Walker, aged 88, at their home in Station Road, Langwith Junction, on January 14 this year.

In the second week of his trial, Romanian national Culea said he had decided to look for the Walkers’ home after hearing a conversation in a Polish shop in Shirebrook, Derbyshire, around two weeks earlier.

After claiming he had gambled away £280 while he faced rent, car insurance and car tax bills, Culea was asked by his KC Clive Stockwell if he had had thoughts on how he could “resolve” his bills and debts of £11,000.

Addressing the jury through a Romanian interpreter, Culea told the court on Wednesday: “I started to become despaired and I remembered a conversation I heard between two people who were talking about a wealthy house that could have been broken into.

“They were talking about a certain house and then they were talking about the location of the house and they said something like ‘up to the one-way street, the first on the right’.

“They were wealthy people and had money.

“I was thinking about a plan… what to do. Somehow it crossed my mind to enter that house and hide, and after they go to sleep, have a search… look for money.”

The court has heard Mr Walker died some months later, although his death was not connected to the attack.

On the first day of his trial last week, Culea admitted the manslaughter of Mrs Walker and inflicting grievous bodily harm on Mr Walker.

The Crown alleges Culea, of Grove Road, Church Warsop, Nottinghamshire, intended to kill the couple in an attack that “was far beyond any justification, savage in its nature and sustained”.

Mrs Walker, who died from a brain injury, was found dead in the kitchen by emergency services the following day after neighbours raised concerns.

Mrs Walker had been gagged, the jury was told, and she had at least two coverings over her head that were knotted – a pillow case and a bin liner.

She had been “hog-tied” with her “wrists bound together, the lower limbs bound together and the two tied together”.

Meanwhile, Mr Walker, who also suffered a brain injury, was found to have been gagged and bound at the wrists and knees, with his bindings also tied to each other.

The trial continues.