Andrew Burfield admitted murdering his ex-girlfriend Katie Kenyon, 33, after a court heard how he buried her body in a grave he had dug the day before in the Forest of Bowland in Lancashire. The 51-year-old killer hit his ex-partner at least 12 times with an ax on April 22 and sent messages to her children from her phone pretending to be Kenyon, saying he was “going away for a while”. Andrew Burfield. Photo: Lancashire Constabulary/PA But after she failed to pick up her children later that day, her friends and family became concerned and her sisters suspected the messages had been sent by Barefield because they were full of mistakes. Both Jenny and Sarah Kenyon visited the Barefield home to try and find out what happened to their sister, with the killer eventually calling the police after things flared up. The next day, Jenny texted Barefield, saying: “Andy I think you know a lot more than you’re letting on!! I have read the messages “katie” sent to her children and she doesn’t write like that or talk like that, like the kids said! “Katie can write and she mentioned you have dyslexia! Which makes sense in spelling! THE SENT TEXTS! DO YOU KNOW WHERE KATI IS!?! The police will trace where he was from the last message he sent. It doesn’t add up how she would leave her car, keys, bank card in yours but no phone and none of her other bank cards!!! It’s time to come forward and start telling some truth now.” Kenyon was last seen on the day of her murder getting into a van in Padiham, East Lancashire, where she lived. Authorities spent seven days searching for her, in a hunt involving 60 specialist officers from Lancashire Police, Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service personnel, mounted police, dog teams, mountain rescue volunteers and drones. Burfield initially told police he had no idea what had happened to Kenyon, but later changed his story to say she died when he accidentally hit her once in the head with the ax after she dared him to knock a Coke can out of her. hand. and he missed it. The court heard she told police: “I went for the tree on her side and it hit (her) on the head. This story was described as “completely improbable” by a Home Office pathologist, who found that there were at least a dozen blows to Kenyon’s head. Barefield was arrested on suspicion of murder on April 27, five days after Kenyon disappeared. Police discovered her body in Gisburn Forest a week after she was murdered in a well-disguised grave in the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, which Burfield had dug using ladders and a spade borrowed from his father the day before. They were led to the scene by the killer, who had hidden her body so well that coroners said they would have had difficulty locating it. Bloody carrier bags and flip-flops believed to belong to Kenyon were later found at a home where Burfield worked as a handyman, by residents who called police. The trial was originally set to last three weeks, but Burfield was re-indicted on the charge on Wednesday when a jury found him guilty. Burfield, of Todmorden Road, Burnley, will be sentenced on Thursday.
