A UK man sentenced to life in prison Wednesday for a quadruple homicide was captured on chilling police bodycam footage casually admitting to the slayings.
Damien Bendall made the cold-blooded confession shortly after he killed his partner, Terri Harris, 35, her two children, John-Paul Bennett, 13, and Lacey Bennett, 11, and her close friend, 11-year-old Connie Gent, inside a home in the English town of Killamarsh last year, according to the footage released Wednesday by the Derbyshire Constabulary.
“I know what’s going to happen. I’m going to go to prison, obviously, again,” Bendall told one of the officers outside the house where the crimes occurred.
When the officer asked why, he calmly replied, “I’ve murdered four people.”
Bendall pleaded guilty to the four murders and also to raping Connie, according to the Derbyshire Constabulary. He was hit with five life sentences for the heinous crimes.
Before the shocking caught-on-camera confession to police, Bendall also admitted to the crime when he alerted a dispatcher over the phone to the bloody scene, according to audio of a call that was released.
“I need the police and the ambulance here now because I’ve killed four people,” he said.
Bendall, 32, was in a relationship with Harris and the two were living together with her two kids, the police force said. Connie, the 11-year-old friend, was sleeping over at the time of the Bendall’s attack.
Harris was pregnant at the time of the murders, the BBC and other outlets reported.
Lord Justice Nigel Sweeny blasted Bendall as he sentenced him to five life prison terms for the September 2021 murders he carried out with a claw hammer.
“You began a relationship with Terri Harris in April 2020. During the course of that, you were abusive and controlling. You took various drugs and were violent and unstable. On the evening of Saturday 18 September while with Terri and the three children, you were under the influence of cocaine and cannabis,” Sweeny said, according to the Derbyshire Constabulary.
“You carried out a brutal and vicious attack on a (defenceless) woman and three children during which you went around the house attacking them, hitting them multiple times about the head and upper body with a claw hammer.”
Detective Inspector Mark Shaw, who spearheaded the probe, said in a statement the level of force and violence used by Bendall proves he wanted them all dead.
“They had all, by the nature of their relationship, come to trust Bendall and he took the opportunity to shatter that trust and carry out the horrendous acts,” Shaw said. “The force and weapon he used would have meant they were very quickly left incapacitated.” (NYPost)