A jealous husband strangled his wife and dumped her dismembered body in a country park and council tip ‘like garbage’, a court has heard.
Thomas McCann, 49, strangled ‘childhood sweetheart’ Yvonne, 46, his wife of 24 years, in the bathroom of their home in Stockport after a row about a £3 bag of frozen chips, Manchester Crown Court heard.
McCann then used a Stanley knife and tree lopper to cut up her body, stopping to send and reply to text messages to their children, pretending their mother was still alive.
The truck driver later told police he was ‘Hannibal Lecter’, and said: ‘I killed my wife and disposed of her like garbage’ after he ‘lost control and could not stop’.
McCann will be sentenced on Tuesday after admitting at an earlier hearing to the murder on May 23, 2020.
Andrew Smith, prosecuting, told the court the couple had four children, met as teenagers and had been together for 32 years until McCann attacked his wife on the Saturday morning of the May Bank Holiday weekend last year.
Mrs McCann began to see another man around 2013, leading to her husband’s jealousy and relationship breakdown and ultimately to her murder.
Parts of her body were discovered by dog walkers in Reddish Vale Country Park, Stockport, on the Bank Holiday Monday and police were alerted.
They found two bags, then four more half a mile away in another part of the park.
The last proof of life was a text message from Mrs McCann replying to a neighbour inquiring if she was OK after hearing rowing come from the property on the Saturday morning of May 23.
Mrs McCann’s text said they had been rowing over a bag of frozen chips.
McCann was then captured on CCTV leaving the house on Rosslave Walk, Brinnington, Stockport, to collect items from his work’s tipper truck.
Between 10.40am and 3.42pm there was no sighting of him, the prosecution suggesting that during that time he was dismembering his wife’s body.