Aaron Wood: Murderer uses pumpkin and a boiler suit to trick wardens and escape prison

DISTRESSING CONTENT WARNING:

A killer went on the run from an open jail after leaving a pumpkin and a boiler suit in his bed to trick guards into thinking he was asleep.

Aaron Wood, 54, who was sentenced to life in 1998 for killing a woman who rejected his demands for sex, fled just weeks after being moved to low-security North Sea Camp Prison in Lincolnshire.

Lincoln Crown Court heard he disappeared on September 22 but was recaptured two days later – having made it 50 miles away – after being spotted by a member of the public.

Phil Howes, prosecuting, told the court: “It is an open establishment, there are no boundaries, no borders. Inmates are trusted not to leave, but he did.”

“Wood hid his disappearance by stuffing a boiler suit full of clothing and using a pumpkin as a head. This was enough to fool a check at 1.15am when a member of prison staff looked through the cell window.”

Wood – who also has convictions for robberies, possession of weapons and violence – was reported missing by his cellmate just before 8am.

When he was caught on September 24, in the village of South Somercotes following a police appeal warning that he should not be approached, he was armed with a knife.

The court heard Wood was serving life for the murder of Rachel Smith, 40, after they met at Kidderminster Hospital.

Wood talked the vulnerable woman into letting him return home with her but, when she rejected sex, he stabbed and strangled her before attempting to burn her corpse.

Her mutilated naked body was found 12 hours later by a friend – her flesh was smoke-charred but the blaze had failed to take hold.

Michael Cranmer-Brown, mitigating, said Wood had mental health anxieties at the time of his escape and had become frustrated after spending over a decade in prison longer than his minimum-term sentence of 16 years.

“He thought he was never going to get out,” he added.

Wood pleaded guilty to escaping from custody and possessing a bladed article, and has now been returned to a stricter prison.

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