Chelmsford murder Ashley Wadsworth man plead guilty

9/8/2022

A Canadian girl who was allegedly murdered by her boyfriend while visiting the UK died from chest stab wounds, an inquest heard. A few weeks after traveling to the UK to visit Jack Sepple, 23, who she had met online, Ashley Wadsworth, 19, died in Chelmsford, Essex. ‘Stab wounds to the chest’ was the probable cause of death. Sepple appeared in court last week concerning the alleged murder of Ashley.

Ashley, left her “small-town” existence to be with him in England on a six-month tourist visa after they initially connected on an online dating app. However, according to her relatives, things soured when “possessive” Sepple swiftly displayed his darker side.

According to family members, her sick lover “went into all her social media accounts, deleted all of her posts, and changed all of her passwords,” but she couldn’t get help. During a hearing at Chelmsford Crown Court, Sepple admitted to killing his teenage lover.

Judge Christopher Morgan told him: ‘You know that by your plea of guilty of murder there is only one sentence and that is to be passed and that is a life sentence.’

One friend, Daniel Seaman, told DailyBeast that Ashley had allegedly cried out for help using different social media accounts before her death because ‘her boyfriend didn’t want to talk with us a lot of the time.’

Her 18-year-old cousin, Kali, had also shared her fears that Ashley was moving halfway across the world to meet up with a stranger she had only met online.

She told DailyMail.com: ‘From the beginning when she decided to go to England for a guy, I was like why are you doing that? It’s really stupid.

‘Obviously, I never thought something like this would happen. I was just like, wow, this is stupid – he has face tattoos, what are you doing?

‘I was like, you’re too good for him anyway; you could get someone awesome in your own city.’

Devastated Kali added: ‘He [Sepple] had been very possessive over her belongings – her phone especially. He was going through her social media and the reason he acted out was because he had seen an old chat.

‘The reason this entire fight started from the beginning was because he had seen an old chat where she flirted with somebody.

‘He freaked out over it and Ashley was on FaceTime with Hailey and she watched him just start beating her.

‘Then [Hailey] reached out and tried to get her an earlier plane ticket. He had logged into all her social media, deleted all her posts and changed all her passwords and smashed her phone.