Lab technician convicted of murdering colleague at his parents' home

He tried to cover his tracks by texting the victim to say he loved her.

A "sadistic" man has been convicted of murdering his colleague at his parents' house in Leicestershire, UK, last year.

The man, identified as Ross McCullam, admitted to manslaughter but denied murder stating that he acted out of "blind rage" set off by undiagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

He strangled and stabbed Megan Newborough's throat 14 times to make sure she was dead. He then dumped her body close to a country lane in Leicestershire. He tried to cover his tracks by sending a voicemail to the woman's phone stating that he loved her.

McCullam and the victim were laboratory workers. They had been seeing each other for a month when he killed her.

During the trial at Leicester Crown Court, he tried to put the blame on his 23-year-old victim. He said that she was preparing to give him oral sex, which triggered him.

"She pulled me closer and said 'come here.'" he told the court. "That's just when I exploded... just rage. I pushed her forward with all my strength. I have never ever felt like that before. It was like a volcano."

"I remember feeling like I couldn't get out - she was trapping me. It was just blind rage," he added.

He said that the reaction was triggered due to PTSD caused by unreported childhood sexual abuse. But the jury found him guilty of the woman's murder in a unanimous verdict.

He took "a series of deliberate actions carefully calculated and executed to cover up Megan's murder," the jury heard.

McCullam sent her a message telling her how amazing she was exactly when he was bundling her body into the passenger seat of her own car. He then drove Newborough's body to a country lane where he dumped her over a stone wall near the village of Woodhouse Eaves, leaving her phone in the undergrowth.

He also watched porn for 17 minutes after disposing of Newborough's body. Police later revealed that his internet search history showed that he looked for information on serial killers such as Levi Bellfield, Soham killer Ian Huntley, and Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe.