Mum’s evil killer tried to play the victim but real reason for confession is more sinister – red flag showed who he was
KILLER Eric Locke’s confession for the murder of Sonia Blount was ‘not about remorse or guilt’ but trying to be the victim, a leading criminologist has said.
Mum-of-one Sonia was strangled to death at the Plaza Hotel in Tallaght in 2016 by the monster, who tricked her into believing she was meeting someone else.
But instead, he was the one who turned up at her door, and subjected her to a terrifying and brutal attack.
Forensic criminologist Jane Monckton-Smith said: “When a man kills a partner who has left him, it is never jealous rage. Most cases have planning and Locke planned.
“Strangulation murder doesn’t happen in a couple of seconds.”
Sonia met Eric when he joined the glue factory she had been working at for several years.
They had a mutual attraction and agreed to a couple of dates but on one such occasion, he found her talking to a group, which included men, and called her a ‘slut.’
Jane said: “Accusing her of flirting, very gendered-slurs. So that incident actually is probably the biggest red flag you can have from anyone who’s going to become a problem for you in the relationship. And she didn’t like it, and she was upset.”
She told him it was too much and called things off, but he hounded her with text messages to try and see her to explain.
“Sonia had only had a couple of dates with him. This kind of behaviour after a relationship break-up is not about love.
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"It’s actually about possession and inability to take any kind of rejection at all. And it can become really quite dangerous, quite quickly.”
At one point pathetic Locke even told her he was considering taking his own life and she reached out and talked to help him.
Former Regional Detective Superintendent Frank Keenaghan said: “Sonia was such a gentle and kind soul, that she was looking after his best interests, and he exploited that. Instead of appreciating it for what it was.”
While he tried to win her back, she had moved on and was in an online relationship with a man she met on Facebook, named Shane Cully. Shane Cully was a fake name used by Locke
CATFISHING CONCERNS
Worried it could be Locke catfishing her, she asked him to send a selfie, which he apparently did.
Meanwhile she had blocked Locke online, and avoided him at work, asking him to stop staring at her and telling co-workers he was ‘freaking her out.’
Frank said: “It must have been very difficult for Sonia on a day-to-day basis coming in and wondering 'how am I going to deal with him today, what form is he going to be in today? I have to thread the needle and be nice to him but not give him the wrong signals.'”
On February 15, she spent the day celebrating her son’s third birthday, before telling her mother she was meeting her friend Susan for drinks, when in fact she was planning to meet Shane Cully.
He had asked her to leave the keycard at reception, but it was Locke who came through the door, after catfishing her online.
VARIED ACCOUNTS
His accounts varied to Gardai but claimed they had consensual sex but she freaked out when she saw what was in his bag- a pellet, gun, cable ties and masking tape.
Gardaí did not believe this and concluded Locke knew what he was doing.
He strangled the 31-year-old after sexually assaulting her, and stuffed her own top down her throat so hard it broke teeth.
Locke then put the Do Not Disturb sign on the hotel door and left her to be found the next day by cleaning staff.
Her worried family found out when they heard of a murder in Tallaght and found her car outside the hotel.
HANDED HIMSELF IN
Hours after she was found, he handed himself into Store Street Garda Station.
Frank said: “From a Garda investigation point of view, here we have a young woman strangled, murdered and we have a guy then coming in and telling us that he did it but he didn’t intend to do it.
"So is it manslaughter or is it murder? Can we prove the intent or can we not prove the intent?”
Forensics proved not only did he strangle her with his hands but also with her phone charger.
Jane said: “The confession is not about remorse or shame or guilt. He’s now trying to say to the police ‘I’m not really this bad guy that I look like.’ He is going to start presenting himself as the victim.
"He claimed he had always suffered with depression through his life but when he met Sonia. It seemed to lift, and he was happy. And then when she finished with him it all came crashing down again. Depression does not cause people to commit this type of murder.”
LIST FOUND
Also found was a list of women’s names and addresses.
“He had a kill list, he went with weapons. Had got there through coercive control means. This guy had been planning this for a while. He was not an innocent. He was not a victim of his own temper.”
The defence asked for a verdict of manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility due to a mental disorder but this was dismissed by the eight men and four women on the jury, who found him guilty of murder after just 90 minutes.
Frank told Sky documentary Ireland’s Most Evil Killers: “What he did is premeditated in that he had set up a fake profile, he had engineered a case whereby Sonia would leave the key card at reception.
"He knew that if Sonia had gone along with her plan to let him in as he knocked at the door, that she would have recognised him through the keyhole and not let him in.
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"He then brought the equipment to tie Sonia up and to gag her, and he had brought the fake firearm."
Ireland’s Most Evil Killers airs this Thursday on Sky Crime and NOW TV.
