Killer 'wrote to victim's father'

Karl Taylor, 27, of Covent Garden, who went on the date with a knife up his sleeve, stabbed 32-year-old Kate Beagley dozens of times before dumping her body.

He was sentenced to a minimum of 30 years in prison after Judge Giles Forrester told him at the Old Bailey: "You are arrogant, manipulative, and you are highly dangerous."

Despite writing the letter, Taylor denied murder and maintained the British Gas sales manager had committed suicide as they sat on a bench above the river Thames in Richmond, south-west London.

He later dumped her body in nettles in Oxhey Wood, north of London. He stole her car and sold her phone.

In the letter, he reportedly wrote: "To be honest my first impression of her was she is a kind but unhappy girl to some respect. Anyway for the short time I met your daughter I began to see she was an angel but in the dark.

"Even though Katie is not with us she still shines brightly as a star in the night sky.

"I might have took your daughter's life but we all know, some of us more than others, that her heart still beats in the good we all do and her soul lives on with all the good memories of her.

"Without any doubt what I did was wrong!!! But ask yourself this? Whose life have I really taken?"

Miss Beagley's father Alan spoke of his family's heartache after the killing, saying: "Kate was so badly damaged that we could not see her to say goodbye. What must it have felt during those last seconds as she was savagely struck down?"