A horrified landlady sobbed: “He’s eating her” in a 999 call after seeing a killer attack a young women in her hotel, an inquest heard today.
Hotel owner Mandy Miles unlocked the door after hearing screams to see Matthew Williams, 34, on top of the body of shopworker Cerys Yemm, 22.
A 999 call played to the inquest jury heard how horrified landlady Mrs Miles, 50, rang police to get help after witnessing the horror in Room Seven of the Sirhowy Arms in Argoed.
She told the 999 operator: “He’s shoving a screwdriver in her face. He’s actually chewing her face.
“He’s been locked in room seven. I don’t know who he’s hurting.
“There’s a lad in the room. He’s actually eating her. It’s awful. His name is Matthew Williams and he’s in room seven.”
The tape hears Mrs Miles sobbing as she says: “There was screaming and screaming. Oh my God. It’s awful.
“I went into the room and he’s killed her. Oh my God. Is this real?
“There’s blood everywhere and it looks like a horror film.
“He was using the screwdriver and stabbing,” said Mrs Miles.
The 999 tape was played to the jury after CCTV images of newly-freed prisoner Williams going into the “halfway house”.
It also shown Mrs Miles’ son Christian arrive with other guests outside the room. She then told him: “You are not going in there.”
She tells her son to come away from the door, after informing the operator that she has seen Williams eating the person inside.
The 999 operator informs officers at just after 1am that there’s been a reported murder at the Sirhowy Arms Hotel where a man has attacked another person with a screwdriver and eating the person’s face.
The operator asks to have all the people inside the hotel to leave as a number of police officers will be arriving. One of the guests at the hotel has been sick.
The hearing was told officers arrived at the hotel 14 minutes after the 999 call to arrest Williams.
Ms Miles told the inquest: “I shouted to him, ‘Matthew, do you know what you are doing? Are you eating her?’
“Science has proved that he wasn’t but that’s what it looked like. There’s just blood dripping from her. It was horrific.”
She added: “He didn’t react to me. He only reacted to Christian. He stopped and went straight back down to her.
“I thought I was going to have to hit him with the fire extinguisher.
“I wanted to make sure that he couldn’t get out. If he got out, he could have killed everybody.
“I couldn’t look back into the room. I was terrified. Christian said, ‘She might be alive’. I said that she wasn’t.”
Williams was released from prison just two weeks before he killed Miss Yemm. He then died himself after being tasered by police.
Miss Yemm was found covered in blood lying underneath Williams in his hostel room – after he binged on drink and drugs in the days before.
An inquest into both their deaths heard Williams, who had been previously diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, was released from custody without any medication or supervision despite being sectioned twice and complaining of hearing voices in his head.
His mother Sally Ann Williams told the inquest her son had previously been diagnosed with drug-induced schizophrenia after claiming he was a tree and saying his food was poisoned.
She said he had been placed in foster care as a teenager after being caught stealing to buy drugs, and his drug addiction was “set in” after he returned from a young offenders institute.
His mental health “deteriorated” after he split up from the mother of his son about three years before he killed Miss Yemm.
Mrs Williams said: “At some point he was sectioned once or twice but I don’t know the details.”
Williams was sent to prison for two-and-a-half years where he was given medication, but was given “no support” when he was released on October 23, 2014.
His mother said: “There was no mental health support whatsoever.
“He told me he’d been released without any medication.
“He’d been released without license and had no probation restrictions.”
She said her son complained “the voices were back” in the days before the killing.
“He told me his head wasn’t right,” she said.
She dropped food off outside his hostel hours before he killed Miss Yemm, where he “seemed fine” and received a text from him later which said he’d made “a lovely dinner” with the food she’d brought him.
That night he “horrifically” killed Miss Yemm in his room, and died in the early hours of the next morning after being tasered by police responding to the “bloody” scene.
“I returned the next day and that’s when I found out what had happened,” she said.
His best friend, Rhodri Moore, told the inquest Williams seemed fine after his release from jail, but deteriorated “after the first couple days.”
He said: “He was taking drugs on a daily basis.
“He said when he looked at a can of coke he could see faces.
“He wasn’t very well. He was seeing things, hallucinating. He was annoyed and on edge. Depressed.
“He couldn’t get any medication. His mother was trying very hard to get someone to see him.
“He was willing to be helped. He wanted to be helped.”
He said Williams binged on amphetamines and cannabis after his release, and Williams was smoking weed the day before he killed Miss Yemm.
Mr Moore told the inquest: “He was looking wired.
“He looked to me like he hadn’t been asleep.”
The inquest in Newport continues.
An awful tragedy for all involved -and the horror all faced is beyond any comprehension – we must remember that it was the local authority who referred residents into this hostel.
Is it therefore not time to introduce an independently run process of inspection of such hostels and their referral processes ?
What occurred that night cannot be undone – but we can make sure such places are safer in the future if pressure is placed for changes in the system.