A jury heard today from an ex-commando who stabbed his neighbors to death after being ‘triggered’ by a security light into believing he was back in a ‘war zone.’
On November 21, last year, Collin Reeves, 35, murdered Stephen and Jennifer Chapple in their Taunton, Somerset home while their two sons slept upstairs.
After leaving the Royal Engineers in 2017, he was given a ceremonial dagger, which he used to stab the couple.
When the ‘flash’ of white light put Reeves on high alert, he was outdoors with the firearm, which he had removed from a frame on his wall.
He told jurors at Bristol Crown Court that he sat on the floor in the ‘buckle’ position, but that he has no recollection of what happened inside his neighbors’ home.
On the grounds of diminished culpability, the ex-soldier admitted to manslaughter but denied murdering his neighbors.
He told the jury today that he was “ashamed and appalled” by his behavior and the “pain” he caused while on the witness stand.
‘Because of me, the two boys will never see their mother and father again,’ Reeves said the court.
‘I have no idea why I did it.’
Reeves’ wife, Kayley, had told him the night before the deaths that she needed a two-week separation because their relationship was becoming more strained.
He crept inside the back door of the Chapples’ house after climbing over the fence between his house and theirs.
Mr Chapple, 36, and his 33-year-old wife were each stabbed six times in their living room and left in a pool of blood.
The fallout was’more about my wife,’ according to Reeves, who said he confronted Mrs Chapple ten days before the death because he ‘wanted to hurt her – the way she was bothering Kayley.’
Giving evidence Reeves said the last thing he remembered was sitting on the stairs crying, with the dagger in a frame ‘at the bottom of the steps.’
He added: ‘I remember a white light that would have been from the garden light at the rear of their house.
‘By the time that light came on, I remember being down on one knee. It felt as though I’d been seen.
‘The white light was always a trigger for something, like someone setting off a trip flare.
‘It was a feeling like something was about to happen. What you are trained to do in this situation is to get to cover.
‘I was trying to get down on my belt buckle and lie down on my front so I wouldn’t be seen or get somewhere to cover. I was just in shock. It was not reality. It was almost a dream.’
Since Jenny learned to drive some months ago, the neighbors had been in a furious quarrel over where Jenny had been parking her car.
Mr Chapple had already placed his car in the couple’s allotted area on the new built estate they resided on, which only had parking for one car per family.
Mrs Chapple instead parked her sky blue car on the road, obstructing Reeves’ assigned parking spot and causing enmity between them.
Reeves stated he had trouble talking to psychiatrists and had never told anyone about his past, including his wife.
He told the court that he had been taught to kill while serving in the Royal Engineers’ 59 Commando Squadron, but claimed he had never killed anyone while in the service.
After returning from Afghanistan in 2009, he acknowledged to drinking regularly and beating his wife during fights about “trivial issues.”
He admitted that he had been a victim of domestic violence as a child and that he had considered suicide last November after finding job as a lorry driver to be “extremely lonely.”
During that confrontation, Reeves stated his emotions were running high because it was Remembrance Day, which he usually struggled with.
‘I was thinking of killing myself or just packing my stuff up and fleeing,’ he added, describing his state of mind on the day of the stabbings.
‘There were days when I didn’t want to talk to anyone.’
The trial is still ongoing.