A 26-year-old drug user who raped and murdered a pensioner after breaking into her home and smothering her, has been jailed for life.
Craig Keogh brutally raped 72-year-old Jane Hings at her bungalow in Fleckney, near Leicester, in the early hours of September 24, 2017. When he was done, he suffocated her using a pillow before removing her wedding and engagement rings and a crucifix from her body.
Keogh, who knew Mrs Hings after previously offering to walk her dog, claimed in police interviews that he had consensual sex with the pensioner and it wasn't rape. He also claimed she was still alive when he left her.
Jurors at Birmingham Crown Court took around four hours to unanimously convict him of murder, burglary and two counts of rape. On Tuesday he was jailed for life with a minimum term of 32 years.
Passing sentence at Birmingham Crown Court, Mr Justice Jeremy Baker told Keogh he had shown no remorse and acted in a "callous" way after the killing.
The judge told the 26-year-old former factory worker, who was described as "bubbly" in the days after the killing: "The reason why you decided to kill Jane Hings was to prevent her from being able to identify you as the person responsible for having burgled her home and raped her. Bearing in mind what you had done, your conduct the next day (in selling the victim’s jewellery and buying drinks for friends) was callous in the extreme."
Jurors heard that Keogh appeared to be "off his face" on cocaine in the hours before the murder, and was seen to kick a wing mirror off a car.
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