More than 30 criminals from the West Midlands have been handed life sentences in 2024. It is the automatic punishment for anyone convicted of murder although not everyone on our list below is a killer.
One man’s sadistic torture of his victims was so evil a judge ruled that he warranted the same fate as those who have intentionally taken a life. Contrary to what the name implies those handed a ‘life sentence’ do not automatically spend the rest of their time behind bars.
Instead, they are ordered to serve a minimum term in custody before they can be considered for release. But they will remain on licence for the rest of their life, hence why it is a life sentence.
READ MORE: Birmingham couple beat, starved and threatened to hang their children upside down from a tree
Disturbingly, our roundup includes a number of children including two 12-year-old boys who became Britain’s youngest knife killers. In many parts of the country a murder would be a rare event.
Sadly in Birmingham and its surrounding areas the courts host a new homicide case more than once a week. Scroll through the list of criminals we have covered this year who were handed a life sentence.
Brandon Price
Brandon Price
Brandon Price stabbed 18-year-old Jack Norton to death in a park in Darlaston in an unprovoked attack. After delivering the fatal blow he was seen ‘jumping up and down with excitement’ and shouting ‘you didn’t think we’d do it, we’ve f*****g’ done it’.
Jack had been with his friends when he bumped into Price, then aged 18, and a 15-year-old boy he was with who started making threats. When he went to leave he was stabbed by Price.
Price and the 15-year-old, who could not be named due to his age, were convicted of murder and sentenced to life. Price was handed a minimum term of 20 years while the younger teenager was handed 15 years minimum.
Kasam Zaman
Kasam Zaman
(Image: West Midlands Police)
Kasam Zaman held two vulnerable men hostage for four days to extort money out of them. The victims were threatened, beaten and subjected to sadistic acts as they were ordered to repay the value of drugs they had been falsely accused of stealing.
One of the men was forced to insert a spatula up his rear end, bark like a dog, dance to rap tracks and sing with a stick with wooden nails in his mouth. He was also made to perform a sex act on the second victim which was recorded and sent to his family.
Zaman, aged 37, from Perry Barr, was found guilty of false imprisonment, causing a person to engage in sexual activity and multiple counts of assault. He was sentenced to life with a minimum term of 12 years. Two other men involved in the extortion received determinate prison sentences.
Peter Norgrove
Peter Norgrove
(Image: West Midlands Police / SWNS)
Peter Norgrove bludgeoned Sharon Gordon to death at her home in Dudley after she criticised his building work. Chilling Ring doorbell footage picked up the 59-year-old victim’s screams.
Norgrove left her for dead in her own blood at the bottom of her stairs having struck her head eight times, leaving a £2-sized hole in her skull. He and Ms Gordon had disagreed over £29,000 worth of work which had not been completed after 15 months despite the fact it was only supposed to take six weeks.
A few hours after the killing heartless Norgrove led a Jehovah’s Witness service at the same place of worship where Ms Gordon regularly attended. He admitted murder and received a life sentence with a minimum of 15 years.
Carl Ellitts
Carl Ellitts
(Image: West Midlands Police)
Carl Ellitts killed a Roy Deeley-Price in a four-day ‘tornado’ of violence in Wolverhampton during which he raped two women, robbed three people and assaulted another. He ambushed devoted dad Mr Deeley-Price and carried out four separate attacks on him in just 11 minutes.
Ellitts also made a failed attempt to use his bank card at a petrol station to buy a sandwich. The 26-year-old was branded a ‘coward and a bully’ by a judge who concluded he ‘enjoyed exercising power’ over his victims. He was initially sentenced to life with a minimum of 27 years.
However that was then increased to 28 and a half years after a judge realised he had been given too much credit for guilty pleas. But two months later the minimum term was upped substantially to 35 years by the Court of Appeal following a police application that the previous tariff was ‘unduly lenient’.
Joshua Edgington, Dray Simmonds, Leroy Robinson and Corey Burkitt
(Clockwise from top left) Joshua Edgington, Dray Simmonds, Leroy Robinson and Corey Burkitt.
Joshua Edgington, Dray Simmonds, Leroy Robinson and Corey Burkitt chased down and killed Joseph Riches in Stourbridge. The 16-year-old had initially confronted them with a screwdriver.
Simmonds, aged 20, stabbed him in the chest with a machete before Edgington, also 20, then filmed the dying teenager. The footage was played at a party the killers went to later on that night.
After being attacked Joseph had scrambled into a car with his friends. His lifeless body was later found in the vehicle which had been abandoned in Rowley Regis.
All four killers, who were teenagers at the time, were sentenced to life after being convicted of murder and possession of a machete. Edgington from Birmingham and Simmonds from Dudley were handed minimum terms of 21 years.
Robinson, aged 16, of Dudley was told to serve 15 years, six months minimum while Burkitt, aged 17, from Smethwick was handed 15 years minimum.
Terrell Boyce
Terrell Boyce
(Image: WMP)
Eighteen-year-old Terrell Boyce stabbed Ronique Thomas to death in Kings Heath in a row over the victim’s electric bike. The victim, aged 33, had his £4,600 bike stolen and later took it from Boyce, who claimed he had bought it from someone else.
There was no doubt the bike belonged to Mr Thomas because it had the same serial number, but egocentric Boyce developed a grudge over it. By chance he and his friends Nathaniel Daly, 21, and Kody Stephenson, 20, saw the bike parked in Kings Heath High Street outside of a shop.
They got out of their taxi and Boyce ran after Mr Thomas down the street. When he caught him up he stabbed him multiple times. He was convicted of murder, robbery and weapons offences. Boyce was sentenced to life with a minimum term of 25 years.
Daly was sentenced to ten years for manslaughter, robbery and having a knife while Stephenson was jailed for six years and six months for robbery.
Kami Carpenter and Remy Gordon
Kami Carpenter and Remy Gordon
(Image: West Midlands Police)
Kami Carpenter stabbed semi-professional footballer Cody Fisher to death at The Crane nightclub in Digbeth on Boxing Day in 2022. He did not know the 23-year-old victim but took revenge on behalf of his friend Remy Gordon, who held a pathetic grudge against Mr Fisher following a minor confrontation at a Solihull bar two nights earlier.
Gordon had posted a photograph of him to his Snapchat group saying ‘due to shank him up’. Tragically that is exactly what happened less than 48 hours later.
Carpenter, aged 22 and from Kings Norton, and Gordon, 23 and from Rednal, were found guilty of murder and sentenced to life with minimum terms of 25 years and 26 years respectively.
Arshdeep Singh, Jagdeep Singh, Shivdeep Singh and Manjot Singh
Clockwise from top left – Arshdeep Singh, Jagdeep Singh, Shivdeep Singh and Manjot Singh
Arshdeep Singh, Jagdeep Singh, Shivdeep Singh and Manjot Singh were part of a Black Country gang who killed DPD driver Aurman Singh. They ambushed the 23-year-old from Smethwick in Coton Hill, Shrewsbury as he was making a delivery.
The victim’s head was brutally chopped at with an axe while he was also bludgeoned with a golf club, wooden stave, hockey stick, shovel, knife, metal bar and cricket bat. The four men were convicted of murder and sentenced to life.
Arshadeep Singh, aged 24, from Tipton was ‘at the centre of everything’. He along with Jagdeep Singh, aged 23 from Dudley, Shivdeep Singh, aged 27 and from Smethwick, and Manjot Singh, aged 25, also from Smethwick, were all handed minimum terms of 28 years.
Sukhmandeep Singh, 25, from Smethwick, worked in the same DPD depot as Mr Aurman and had provided the attackers with information on his whereabouts. He was sentenced to ten years for manslaughter. Other men were believed to be involved but have yet to be brought to justice.
Tyrone Hollywood and Leighton Williams
Tyrone Hollywood and Leighton Williams
(Image: West Midlands Police)
Leighton Williams fatally stabbed 50-year-old Kelvin Ward in the chest in the middle of the road after Tyrone Hollywood had swung a zombie knife at him. Both had been part of a gang who had planned to kill the victim’s teenaged son and had rammed his car at the KFC drive-thru in Castle Bromwich.
The teen managed to escape following a foot chase but Mr Ward got into the gang’s stolen Ford Kuga, which they left behind. He tried to mow down Hollywood but missed and collided into railings which led to him being confronted and killed in the street.
Williams, from Shard End, and Hollywood, of Ward End, were found guilty of murdering Mr Ward and conspiracy to murder his son. Both were sentenced to life with Williams receiving 29 years minimum and Hollywood being handed 19 years minimum. Two other teenagers were involved but did not receive life sentences.
William Connors
William Connors
(Image: West Midlands Police)
William Connors deliberately ran over and killed his father-in-law Thomas Connors outside the victim’s home in Wolverhampton. The 28-year-old had gone out searching for his estranged wife after a row, despite being ordered not to contact her under a bail condition.
He then rowed with Thomas, aged 62, who was also his uncle and had battled cancer. William initially drove away only to turn his Mercedes around, mount the kerb and run him down causing fatal injuries.
He then fled to Coventry before handing himself in. Thomas Connors died in hospital the following day. William was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life with a minimum term of 20 years.
Rajveer Mahey
Rajveer Mahey
(Image: West Midlands Police)
Jealous Rajveer Mahey murdered his wife Kamaljeet Mahey after becoming ‘obsessed’ with the false idea she had been unfaithful. He slashed at her 28 times with a knife after luring her into the garage at their home in Bilston in the early hours of the morning, while their two children were asleep.
The 50-year-old waited two hours before ‘calmly’ calling relatives to tell them what he had done. Paramedics described him as ’emotionless’ as he sat on the sofa when they arrived. Mahey had controlled and abused his 45-year-old wife during their relationship as well as spread fake rumours she had cheated on him.
He cynically claimed he had acted in self defence but was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life with a minimum term of 16 years and eight months.
Mohammed Qasim
Mohammed Qasim
Mohammed Qasim murdered Richard Hopley in Harborne in a plan to rob the drug dealer he was driving around. The 24-year-old and three other men set a trap and then waited for Mr Hopley to arrive in a Volkswagen Passat.
Qasim got in the passenger seat, took out a knife and ordered the dealer to hand over his drug stash. A struggle took place during which he stabbed 43-year-old Mr Hopley in the chest.
The victim managed to drive a short distance around the corner but collapsed at the wheel causing the car to crash. He died from his injuries. Qasim, from Satley, was found guilty of murder and conspiracy to rob.
He was sentenced to life with a minimum of 30 years imprisonment. Two other men have previously been jailed for manslaughter while the fourth suspect has fled to Pakistan.
Vitali Tanga
Vitali Tanga
(Image: WMP)
Vitali Tanga murdered Alfred Mattox at the victim’s home in Wolverhampton because he was gay. He got drunk on vodka and then attacked the 56-year-old by repeatedly kicking him in the head.
He later claimed to police officers that he had to ‘show him he was a man’ after the victim supposedly made a move on him. Tanga, aged 40, from Wolverhampton was found guilty of murder and assaulting Mr Mattox’s lodger. He was sentenced to life with a minimum term of 25 years.
Benjamin Wilkes, Patrick Brookes, Sonny Loverage and Ronan McCullogh
Clockwise from top left: Benjamin Wilkes, Patrick Brookes, Sonny Loverage, Ronan McCullogh
(Image: WMP)
Benjamin Wilkes, Patrick Brookes, Sonny Loverage and Ronan McCullogh were part of a gang who killed Bailey Atkinson in Walsall town centre. Tragically, the 21-year-old victim had moved to the town from Coventry to ‘escape a gang lifestyle’.
He was with a female friend when his attackers arrived in two cars and chased him down. Mr Atkinson was stabbed numerous times and the gang fled the scene.
Seven teenagers in total were found guilty of murder and handed life sentences, including three who were too young to be named, while two further youths were cleared. Brookes, aged 18 from Walsall and McCulloch, 19 and from Bloxwich were handed minimum terms of 20 years.
Loveridge, aged 20, from Bloxwich, was sentenced to a minimum of 23 years and Wilkes, aged 18 from Bloxwich, must serve a minimum of 18 years. Three 17-year-olds were given 19-year minimum terms.
Tarik Al-Mitheab
Tarik Al-Mitheab
(Image: WMP)
Tarik Al-Mitheab stabbed one-time friend Mahmoud Alabdullah to death in the street after they had fallen out over a necklace. The 22-year-old followed the victim as he drove past him to pick up someone from an address in Cherrywood Road, Bordesley Green.
After the fatal stabbing Al-Mitheab went to a McDonald’s with another friend. Then, after going to sleep, he went to a Greggs in Birmingham city centre before eventually handing himself in.
He was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life with a minimum of 20 years in prison. A few months before the stabbing he had fallen out with Mr Alabdullah who had wanted the necklace he was wearing at the time.
Mpho Obi and Omari Lauder
Mpho Obi and Omari Lauder
(Image: WMP)
Mpho Obi and Omari Lauder murdered 16-year-old Terrell Marshall-Williams in a Merry Hill ‘crack den’. The flat had been ‘cuckooed’ by drug dealers who had taken over a vulnerable person’s home to use as their base.
Obi, aged 23, who was known as a significant supplier in Wolverhampton, instigated the killing with a ‘zombie knife’. Lauder, aged 24, was described as his ‘willing lieutenant’. Terrell suffered eight deep stab wounds but managed to inflict a slash wound to Lauder’s thigh with his own knife in an attempt to defend himself.
Obi, from Wolverhampton and Lauder, from Darlaston, were both handed life sentences after being found guilty of murder and possession of an offensive weapon. Obi, who was also convicted of drug dealing offences, was received a minimum term of 28 years while Lauder was handed a minimum of 24 years.
Akeem Lawrence
Akeem Lawrence
(Image: WMP)
Akeem Lawrence was involved in the murder of Murtaza Nazir who was gunned down in the street in Stechford in August 2020. The 26-year-old father-of-two got out of his car on Bagshaw Road when two other vehicles on cloned number plates pulled up. Each had a driver and gunman inside.
Mr Nazir was hit in a hail of ten bullets before the attackers fled. Lawrence, aged 30, from Clipson Road, Birmingham was linked to the killing by CCTV footage and mobile phone analysis.
He was sentenced to life with a minimum term of 35 years after being found guilty of murder and conspiracy to possess a firearm. Two other men have previously been jailed for their involvement.
Sujeel Amjad
Sujeel Amjad
Sujeel Amjad was part of a gang who planned to murder a man in Birmingham. The 22-year-old and his associates drove to an address in Wolverhampton to collect a number of guns, including a Skorpion machine pistol.
The firearms were handed over to a would-be assassin who went on to shoot up a home in Hodge Hill. The intended target was not in at the time but when he did return to the address later on, the car he was in was fired upon by the gunman. Luckily none of the occupants were hit.
Two stolen vehicles used in the shootings were found torched. Amjad, from Burney Lane, Alum Rock, was convicted of attempted murder and arson. He was sentenced to life with a minimum term of 20 years.
12-year-old boys
One of two 12-year-old boys convicted of killing Shawn Seesahai
(Image: West Midlands Police/PA Wire)
Two 12-year-old boys became Britain’s youngest knife killers after murdering 19-year-old Shawn Seesahai in Wolverhampton. They punched, kicked, stamped on and chopped at the victim with a machete at Stowlawn playing fields in the East Park part of the city.
The attack was completely unprovoked. The killer boys, whose identity could not be legally reported due to their age, were both found guilty of murder. They were also convicted of possessing a bladed article. They were both sentenced to life with a minimum term of eight years and six months.
Muhammad Ali’s teenage murderer
Muhammad Ali was stabbed to death in Birmingham city centre in a case of mistaken identity. The 17-year-old met a friend in the Bullring before they walked to Victoria Square and sat next to the Floozie in the Jacuzzi.
The pair were unware they had been followed by two 15-year-old boys who soon confronted them. They wrongly accused Muhammad and his friend of carrying out an earlier attack. Muhammad told them to go away prompting one of the boys to brandish a knife and stab him in the chest.
One of the teenagers was sentenced to life with a minimum term of 13 years after being convicted of murder and possession of a knife. The other received five years for manslaughter. Neither could be named due to their age.
Damian Homer
Damian Homer
(Image: West Mercia Police)
Damian Homer attacked his girlfriend Stacey Hill and murdered her mother Wendy Francis, aged 61, at an address in Worcester. Ms Hill, 38, suffered serious injuries but survived and was able to provide vital evidence which helped secure the conviction against her ex-partner.
Homer, 50, was sentenced to life with a minimum term of 20 years after being convicted of murder and attempted murder.
Filmon Andmichaen
Filmon Andmichaen
(Image: West Midlands Police)
Filmon Andmichaen murdered his pregnant girlfriend Liwan Bereket because she refused to get an abortion. He lured the 26-year-old woman to secluded woodland in Ladywood where he stabbed her to death.
The victim was six months pregnant at the time but her unborn baby girl died at the scene along with her. Andmichaen, aged 27, called police two hours later and confessed that he had killed Ms Bereket but cynically claimed it was an accident. He was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life with a minimum term of 27 years.