Man who strangled teenager and stored body in wardrobe gets minimum 26 years

A killer who strangled a 17-year-old girl during a violent sexual attack and stored her body in a clingfilm-wrapped wardrobe has been jailed for at least 26 years.

Ashley Foster used a shirt as a ligature to kill Megan Bills within hours of meeting her then allowed her remains to decompose for more than a fortnight as he searched the internet for so-called snuff movies.

Jurors at Wolverhampton Crown Court unanimously convicted Foster of murder after hearing how the 24-year-old was released from prison three days before the killing at a hostel in Brierley Hill, West Midlands.

Sentencing Foster to a mandatory life term, Judge James Burbidge QC said right-thinking people would regard Foster's conduct in the days after the killing - celebrating his birthday as normal and boasting about his sex life - as "beyond belief".

Ruling that Foster had intended to kill rather than cause serious harm, the judge said: "Megan was vulnerable because she was young, although she was trying to live an independent life.

"Instead of acting in a compassionate, human and decent manner, you not only failed to ring the authorities, you bundled her body in a curtain or bedding and then placed her body in a wardrobe.

"You left her body there to be discovered by others. That in itself is shocking."