Youth, 16, stabbed to death in ‘crack den’ with Rambo-style knife, jury told

A 16-year-old boy stabbed to death at a flat used as a “crack den” suffered nine sharp force injuries after being attacked with a Rambo-style knife, a jury has been told.

Wolverhampton Crown Court was told one of the wounds suffered by Terrell Marshall-Williams at the property, in the Merry Hill area of the city, severed his spinal cord and would have “paralysed” his lower limbs.

Opening the case against Omari Lauder and Mpho Obi, who both deny murder and possessing an offensive weapon, on Monday, prosecutor Tim Hannam KC said Terrell was pronounced dead after paramedics and police were called to Warnford Walk at about 4.30pm on September 18 last year.

The Crown alleges the teenager was killed inside the property by 23-year-old Lauder, from Wolverhampton Street, Darlaston, West Midlands, and Obi, aged 22, of Strathfield Walk, Merry Hill.

Mr Hannam told the jury that the victim, who was slightly built, 5ft 9ins, and weighed 8st 3lbs, suffered wounds to his face, chest, shoulder and back.

The Crown’s KC said: “This case has drugs as its background. That was why these defendants were also at that flat.”

Despite his young age, Mr Hannam said, Terrell was “moving in a dangerous and unpleasant world” and in the months before his death had been arrested twice in possession of quantities of drugs and of bladed weapons.

He said of the scene of the killing: “Young people from the area were in the habit of using that flat to hang out in and to take drugs.

“Obi in his police interview described it as a crack den.”

Lauder further denies charges of possessing crack cocaine and heroin, while Obi admits drugs charges and stabbing Terrell, claiming he had tried to hit someone with a bicycle during a fight and was then hit over the head with a plastic item.

In his account, the court heard, Obi said he had picked up a “Rambo knife” from the floor as Lauder was being attacked.

After taking jurors through maps and phone evidence said to incriminate the defendants, Mr Hannam alleged: “These defendants had deliberately gone to that flat armed with a large and very lethal knife.

“Whether they went there to buy, deal or steal drugs, or for some other reason, only they can say.

“What can be said with certainty is that Terrell was brutally slain in a ferocious attack using the knife that they brought with them.

“He was killed immediately on their arrival.”

The court heard that it may be claimed Terrell was killed “by one or other” of the defendants in self-defence, with Lauder having been treated in hospital in Walsall for a thigh wound which caused blood loss.

But Mr Hannam added: “It is the Crown’s case that in causing the death of Terrell, both of these defendants were acting together, with the intention to kill or cause him really serious harm, with each one supporting and encouraging the other in that aim.”

Evidence in the trial is expected to begin on Tuesday.