Jailed: violent fantasist who killed young teacher he met online

A killer who strangled a young teacher to death in a hotel room on a first date has been jailed for life.

Carl Langdell [pictured] was given a minimum sentence of 26 years after confessing to murdering young teacher Katie Locke and sexually assaulting her corpse.

Langdell throttled Miss Locke in a hotel room, hours after a first date organised through the Plenty of Fish website.

The 26-year-old, who lied to Miss Locke about being a lawyer, wrapped his victim’s body in a duvet before dumping her near a skip in the grounds of the four-star hotel.

It emerged today that the fantasist had been released from a psychiatric hospital just two months before the Christmas Eve killing last year.

And months before the murder, he avoided going to prison after making threats to kill a community nurse.

Instead he got a suspended sentence, having threatened the woman in what he claimed was an attempt to shock mental health officials to get their attention.

After the murder, Langdell told his mother he was a ‘monster’ and claimed he had killed Miss Locke in a sex game gone wrong.

He also phoned another woman he had been dating to tell her he had killed someone and would be ‘going to prison for a long time’.    

St Albans Crown Court heard Langdell had told a mental health worker that he had fantasies of cutting a girl’s throat, seeing her naked and having sex with her dead body, just nine months before he murdered Miss Locke.

Judge Andrew Bright told him: ‘I am firmly of the view that you pose a very great danger to women and young girls with whom you come into contact with in the future.

‘I note that you have described yourself to others as a monster and a psychopath because of what you did to Katie Locke.

Miss Locke murdered by a date she met online, her parents described their daughter (pictured) as a ‘ray of sunshine’

She had met her killer on the dating website Plenty of Fish

Miss Locke’s parents described their daughter, who taught at a school in east London, as a ‘ray of sunshine’

The judge continued: ‘Once you have served the minimum term I have set, it will be for others to decide when, if ever, it will be safe for you to be released. They will be guided by psychiatric opinion on your condition.

Langdell, of Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, who admitted Katie’s murder at an earlier hearing, showed no emotion as he was led away to the cells.

The court had heard that, on the night of her murder, Miss Locke had texted her friend to say her night was going well.

Langdell and Miss Locke left Trafik bar in Shoreditch, east London, at around 2am on Christmas Eve and took a taxi back to the hotel, arriving at 3.30am.

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