They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Ever since we first began taking photographs of the world around us and ourselves, we’ve been fairly obsessed with capturing every memory for posterity, even the most mundane of moments.
There is something to be said for having this ability at our fingertips at any given moment. It allows for the transference of knowledge and experience in an instant. It can also be inadvertently revealing for those with something to hide.
Chilling Selfie
Sean Histon and George Dixon were both flashing broad smiles for the camera. They’d taken a selfie to celebrate New Years. It was an innocuous moment, something that millions of other celebrants were doing all over the world at that very moment, but their selfie was far more chilling. You wouldn’t know it at first glance, but they had just killed a man.
Drunken Evening
Ashley Cochrane of Jesmond, Newcastle, England was a joyful and rambunctious fellow. Like Sean and George, he was out and about, enjoying a fun-filled New Year’s Eve. By 9:30 p.m., Ashley was so into his cups that he’d fallen asleep on the bar and had been asked to leave. So he headed to a friend’s place.
Catherine House
Needing somewhere to round out the rest of the Eve, Ashley left the Lord Clyde pub and headed over to Catherine House, an apartment complex on Shields Road in Byker. His good friend Robert Martin lived there and though he wasn’t home, he had a key so he let himself in. Meanwhile, Martin made his way home to meet him.
Returning Home
When Mr. Martin returned to his apartment, he and the friend he was with found that the entire place had been ransacked. They searched around, about to call the police, when they heard a groaning sound coming from one of the rooms. A body lay on the floor on a blood-soaked pillow, so wounded that it was completely unrecognizable.
Countless Injuries
Almost every one of the victim’s ribs was broken. The man’s cheekbone was fractured, he had extensive bruising all over, including some rather severe bruising to the head. His puncture wounds indicated that he’d been stabbed with both a pen and a knife, and his head appeared to have been smashed through a wall.
Unrecognizable
Neither Martin nor his friend had ever seen a body so badly injured before. They had been so brutally beaten that neither of them could tell that it was actually Ashley. Whoever it was though, they could plainly see that they were dying. They called emergency services, who did their best to stabilize him. But by the next day, Ashley Cochrane was dead.
No Idea
”I had no idea it was Ashley at the time when I found him on the verge of death. It was not until the following day I realized it was Ashley,” Martin explained in court a few months later. “When I was told I broke down in tears. I’ve still not come to terms with the fact I didn’t recognize him and the horrific state his face was in.”
Wrong Place, Wrong Time
The killers, Histon and Dixon, had gone after Ashley simply because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He had been tortured, stabbed, and beaten within an inch of his life. Why had they done this though? Why beat this man to death? Even if he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, there had to be some sort of motive.
Bank Details
The men hadn’t just killed Ashley, they had tortured him first. They wanted to rob him and in order to get his pin code, set about torturing it out of him. Drunk as he was, Ashley probably lasted far longer under this torment than he normally would have. In the end, they got nothing out of him except the card itself, which they used to unsuccessfully try and withdraw money from an ATM.
New Years Day
After they had killed Ashley, Histon and Dixon wiped their hands, destroyed what evidence they could, and went over to Dixon’s mother’s house to ring in the rest of the New Year. They had dragged the victim’s lifeless body to an unoccupied room and shut the door behind them. They had just brutally murdered a man for nothing and it seemed they hadn’t a care in the world.
Found Out
Eventually, the two men were trailed by their fraudulent use of Ashley’s bank card. The crimes they had so callously celebrated on that fateful New Years were now laid bare for all the world to see, including the grisly selfie they took right after committing the heinous act. Even brought before the judge, the two men still seemed unabashed.
Chastised
Justice Nicklin, who presided over the trial, made very little effort to try and hide his disdain of the two men. “You barely knew him, he had done nothing to you, he offered no threat. … He was drunk, possibly asleep, and you took advantage of that vulnerability.” They brought in an experienced pathologist to testify to the degree of damage the men had inflicted.
The Height of Nastiness
The pathologist spoke about how violent the nature of the attack was. But it wasn’t just that the attack was, “at the top end of nastiness,” as the pathologist described, it was how callously they had abandoned the dying man. He couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. They had left Ashley alone to die, unsure of why such a dreadful thing had happened to him.
He Did Nothing
Even after the evidence had been presented, it wasn’t clear whether or not both Dixon and Histon had both meted out the violence. In fact, most of the evidence seemed to show that Dixon had done nothing but watch as his friend beat and stabbed the innocent man to death. The judge took only partial pity on this, as it was clear he wanted the money as much as his partner in crime.
Loved Ones
Before the judge passed judgment, he gave Ashley’s family and friends a chance to speak. “One of the saddest and most difficult parts of sentencing for murder and manslaughter is hearing statements from loved ones,” said the justice. “Suddenly, without warning, a son, a brother, a partner, a friend is taken away from them by the criminal acts of others. A death changes lives forever and no sentence I can pass will ever take away the pain.”
Never Forget
Ashley’s mother, Gill Evans, spoke first. She spoke of her devastation from the loss and how awful it was to have the police come to her door with the news. “I will never forget the moment the police arrived and told me my son had been murdered,” she told the Newcastle courtroom. Speaking through tears, she pressed on.
An Endless Nightmare
“That was the beginning of a nightmare,” Gill explained. “A nightmare I’ve never woken up from.” She went on to speak at length about her “beautiful boy” and how enthusiastic he had been early in life. Like most parents, Gill was of the opinion that no mother should ever have had to go through what she did. Mrs. Evans referred to her “beautiful boy” and spoke of his enthusiasm during his early life.
Profound Effects
Gill spoke about the profound effect the incident had on her health. “To hear how he lost his life is something that will live with me forever,” she said. She wasn’t the only one who was invited to come to speak on Ashley’s behalf, either.
Victim Impact
Robert Martin, Ashley’s close friend, and the man who had come to Catherine House to find his friend beaten within an inch of his life that night, also got up to speak from the witness stand. He shook with emotion as he pulled out his victim impact statement and began to read. “I’m haunted by what happened that night and his death,” he began.
His Own Nightmares
“I hope I never have to see anything like that again. I have recurring nightmares about him, about the fact I found him on a pillow covered in blood and seeing his face in the terrible state it was in.” Like the others who had seen it, Ashley’s condition had made a life-long impression upon his psyche.
Needless Violence
Martin added that he couldn’t believe that any human being would have been able to inflict that much pain on another person. More so, he couldn’t believe that it had all been for nothing. They had tortured him and gotten nothing for it but a jail sentence. In the end, the whole thing was pointless.
Worming Their Way
Martin and Gill could both agree on the defense attorney’s flimsy arguments defending their clients’ unforgivable actions. As Gill put it, it was devastating watching her son’s killers “squirm like worms on the hook” to try and get away with the crime. They didn’t of course. They would pay for what they had done.
Convictions
In the end, 33-year-old Sean Histon, was convicted of murder and of committing acts intended to pervert the course of justice. This last bit refers to him washing his clothes and footwear following the murder. Despite his passive intervention, George Dixon was also convicted, but not of murder, of manslaughter.
Sentences
Their sentences were both more than adequate as well. Histon will be imprisoned for a life, with a minimum of 30 years. Dixon, will be serving at least 17 years for manslaughter. Nothing can bring Ashley Cochran back, but his soul can rest easy knowing that the men responsible for his untimely demise got nothing from their murderous deeds but jail time.
