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00:10I'm David Wilson, Emeritus Professor of Criminology, and for over 30 years, I've
00:17investigated the phenomenon of murder, and what it is that might motivate someone to
00:23kill. Every murder case is different, but time and again, a deadly pattern emerges of warning
00:34signs and red flags. In this new series, I investigate some of the UK's most harrowing
00:45murder cases to understand how and why these terrible crimes occur.
00:55This is Murder UK.
01:11In January 2018, Laura Sugden and her partner Shane Gilmer were getting ready for a peaceful
01:19night out. They were a couple that was deeply in love and totally unaware that their every
01:27move was being carefully watched. And in a matter of a few hours, that peaceful evening
01:36was going to descend into utter horror.
01:42It was January the 12th, and myself and Shane had booked in to go to a local restaurant.
01:49We'd been wanting to go for a while. They were always out and about, out for meals. It was
01:56almost sickening how in love that they were. Theirs has been a whirlwind romance, a chance
02:04meeting that quickly becomes intense and committed. And within months, Laura Sugden and Shane Gilmer
02:12are living together, building a life at speed, as if nothing could go wrong.
02:18Everything sort of happened from there really, really quite quickly. We were sort of living
02:23together and then the next thing we were having a baby. Shane had said to me, that's the best
02:30thing that could happen. Like, I couldn't love you anymore.
02:34We were delighted, both myself and her mother, at the news. They seemed so happy together.
02:44Laura liked being looked after, and Shane just took it to a whole nother level with her.
02:52I think Shane thought, because I'd not been keeping my food down very well, that it was
02:56sort of something nice that I might enjoy a meal for the first time in a while. So, yeah,
03:01it was a bit of a treat. It's a cold January evening. Shane and Laura are heading out for
03:09a quiet dinner, a simple gesture that shows how much he cares. The restaurant is a 40-minute
03:17drive from their cottage in Southburn, near Drifield. You can sort of go through it and
03:24then you've missed it. It's that small. I always used to go and visit and the girls would
03:30play in the garden. She had a trampoline set up for them. There was just more room for
03:36them to run around and we knew they were safe.
03:40Shane and Laura's semi-detached red-brick house sits on the edge of the countryside,
03:46fields behind them, woodland beyond. It's quiet, tucked away, idyllic, with only the
03:54neighbouring cottage beside them. Environments like this can make danger feel distant, almost
04:04unthinkable.
04:07There was a check-in at that location at Gina's to say that they were out for a meal. I
04:12saw
04:12that and I thought, they're not going to be home for a little while so I'll head straight
04:16home and then I'll pop in and see them the next day.
04:19At the restaurant, Laura was struggling to relax. It was clear that there was something or
04:26someone on her mind. Her neighbour just over the garden wall.
04:33He's a man with a past. He spent time in the territorial army and received prison sentences that hint
04:41at a capacity for discipline and danger.
04:47Shane and Laura, they were living next door to a strange character, a man called Anthony Lawrence.
04:58They didn't see very much of him. He used to come and go mainly just to take the dog out
05:03or get in his vehicle.
05:08He was a very strange man. He'd never say hello, even if I said hello to him. He wouldn't make
05:14eye contact.
05:18I started to hear little bits about they were having some problems with him.
05:24Back in Southburn, Anthony Lawrence knows his neighbours are out.
05:31And for over a year, he's been nursing a quiet resentment, one that's twisted over time into something darker.
05:42To Lawrence, Shane and Laura have behaved as neighbours in some way that to him signals disrespect.
05:51It's a resentment that festers in isolation, evolving into what's known as grievance-fuelled violence.
06:00This is somebody who's showing indications of really having developed a hatred of this hopeful, optimistic young couple.
06:15Them going out on this joyful, innocent night out, it presented an opportunity for him to culminate his campaign of
06:23hatred.
06:25Myself and Shane are both quite quick eaters, so we weren't in there particularly long.
06:31It's actually got a necks attached to it, so we did actually go to get just some baby grows.
06:38As Laura and Shane browse baby clothes, Anthony Lawrence climbs into his attic.
06:46And what he's been building up there reveals the depth of his fixation.
06:51It's a kind of secret preparation that points to obsessive thinking, which is often driven by a perceived lack of
07:00control.
07:01It loops, fixates and intensifies over time.
07:06It isn't rational, but to the person caught in it, the obsession can feel justified, even necessary.
07:15Anthony Lawrence has been meticulously removing bricks from the attic that separates the two houses.
07:27To enable him to move about from his side of the house to their house with minimal disturbance.
07:42Laura and Shane set off from Hull.
07:45They have a couple of stops to make before returning home.
07:48My brother wanted to see the car, so we did actually just call to Driftfield where my family lived,
07:53show my brother the car and then sort of headed back.
07:57We called at Tesco's and Shane got me some of the non-alcoholic ciders.
08:02Then we drove back to Southburn.
08:07Meanwhile, Lawrence is preparing his next step.
08:11He's leaving his loft.
08:14Anthony Lawrence moves across into their loft and drops down through the hatch into Laura and Shane's house.
08:23He was waiting for them.
08:27Laura and Shane returned to Southburn shortly after 9pm.
08:33Unbeknownst to them, Anthony Lawrence is there as well.
08:39I said to Shane, I was like, I'm just going to go upstairs.
08:41We'll just watch telly upstairs, watch a film or something, because I am tired.
08:45And that's when she noticed that something was on the floor below the loft space.
08:52I saw just like a really tiny, like a dirty, like sort of muddy mark.
08:59I mean, it was probably about as big as a five pence piece.
09:03Nobody wore shoes in my upstairs.
09:06Just I couldn't work out where I'd come from.
09:09Laura cautiously opens the three bedroom doors one by one.
09:17In situations like this, the mind races.
09:21It balances fear with disbelief as instinct starts to register that something is deeply wrong.
09:31She opens one bedroom door.
09:34Nothing there.
09:36Pushed open my bedroom door.
09:37You know, there's nothing there.
09:38I just got a really strange feeling when I opened Isabel's bedroom door.
09:43It's like I knew that.
09:45I didn't think somebody was in my house.
09:46I knew he was in my house.
09:53Laura knows she is going to come face to face with Anthony Lawrence.
09:59And there he is, standing in the third bedroom, completely calm, with a crossbow.
10:14For over a year, Anthony Lawrence had nursed a violent fixation.
10:21And then in January 2018, he breaks into expectant parents Laura and Shane's home, armed with a crossbow.
10:33A crossbow takes planning and control, and it's not impulsive, but suggests calculated, simmering intent.
10:45He told me he was going to kill us both.
10:49Just like that, you know, you're both going to die tonight.
10:53Wearing a head torch and obviously holding his crossbow, Lauren stands before Laura in her home, and a place that
11:05should have been safe and secure has now become, well, frightening and chaotic.
11:14When I saw it, I thought it was a bow and arrow.
11:16When I've seen a bow and arrow, they're usually wooden.
11:18And this has looked more like a machine.
11:20I did notice the bolts on the sort of, on it.
11:24I thought, gosh, they are unbelievable.
11:29Such a degree of evil, where he just simply wanted to murder two people.
11:36It's, it's your worst nightmare.
11:41Laura Sugden has lived beside Anthony Lawrence for over six years.
11:47They were never close, but always civil.
11:51He did really keep himself to himself to an extent.
11:55He had told me that he had been in prison previously,
11:58but he didn't go into a lot of detail about what he'd been in prison for.
12:04Living in this isolated, but almost shared space, that there are moments where their, their lives do overlap.
12:14He took my dogs for a walk.
12:16My internet wasn't working at one point, and he gave me his Wi-Fi password and said,
12:22if any problems, just give me a ring, because he knew that I was on my own there.
12:28Lawrence presents as helpful, even protective, yet maintains secrecy and distance.
12:36For someone with a hidden criminal past, these controlled interactions serve a dual purpose.
12:43He's managing his image, whilst keeping others at length.
12:52Laura was suspicious that Tony was growing marijuana.
12:59The smell of cannabis, um, was horrendous.
13:04Uh, we had fires upstairs in, old fires in my house, uh, in Isabelle's bedroom.
13:10And the smell was coming through so much so that I ended up moving her into the spare bedroom.
13:16When it was just Laura and her, her young daughter as his neighbour, I, I, I think, um, this was
13:22tolerable.
13:23This was comfortable for, for Anthony Lawrence.
13:27In autumn 2016, Laura's office romance with Shane Gilmer blossoms, and he moves in.
13:35I remember her telling me about someone at work that she, she'd met.
13:41Um, and myself and Laura went on a night out in Beverly.
13:47And it was just me and her, and we were having a girly chat and a few drinks.
13:52And then next thing he pops up behind both of us, we're taking a selfie.
13:57And that was the first time that I met him.
14:01I could tell by the way they looked at each other that it was, it was going to develop into
14:05more than just friends.
14:08It made me laugh constantly.
14:11Laura and Shane's relationship is grounded, supportive and full of promise.
14:21I think it was only a matter of months before he was living, living there with her and Isabel.
14:26And it was just like they'd been together for years.
14:30He came to stay and just never really left.
14:33Um, and it became quite evident that I didn't really want him to leave.
14:36Then the sort of next thing we was having a baby.
14:41The father's main concern is, is your daughter going to be with someone who's going to look after them?
14:48Uh, and I felt that the kind of person that we, we got to know in Shane, that she was
14:53in very good hands.
14:55Shane's arrival marks a subtle but significant shift in Laura's life and in her dynamic with her neighbour, Anthony Lawrence.
15:07Tony had started playing, um, loud music.
15:11It, I just sort of ignored it.
15:13But then it would continue to like, you know, twelve, one o'clock in the morning.
15:17Did become a bit of a pain.
15:19I just thought it's really strange that this is all just starting up and there's never been anything for sort
15:24of years on end.
15:26We might never know what actually triggers Lawrence's behaviour.
15:33But it's quite clear that Laura's relationship with Shane changes the dynamic of the relationship that Laura had once had
15:44with Lawrence.
15:46Or that Lawrence believed that he had once had with Laura.
15:50And that kind of new presence, the new male presence of Shane in the household, is I think one which
15:57is going to create the circumstances in which Lawrence feels aggrieved.
16:06I just thought he was a harmless oddball.
16:09I didn't see any threat to them from him.
16:12I just thought, for whatever reason, he decided he didn't like having them next door.
16:19But in January 2017, all of that changes when a minor incident escalates into a violent confrontation.
16:32Myself and Shane were sat just playing a game of Monopoly.
16:34It was a weekday night.
16:37It got to like sort of ten o'clock and we could hear the music from next door.
16:41That obviously started up again, really loud.
16:43So we actually muted our telly and just listened sort of to his.
16:47Sort of made a bit of a jerk about it.
16:50Shane had said to me, look, if it's still going on when we go to bed, I'll just go around
16:53and just ask him if he'll turn it down.
16:57To Shane that was just a normal, simple request.
17:01Little did he know that that was an act that triggered a campaign of hatred in Anthony Lawrence.
17:13To someone like Lawrence, Shane's request may have felt like a challenge, a blow to his sense of control.
17:21For those already holding onto resentment, even minor conflicts can become triggers.
17:29I just had a lot of sort of commotion outside.
17:31So I've obviously gone outside into the back garden.
17:35Tony was just coming down the pathway with an axe, saying that he was going to effing kill us.
17:45Just sort of rambling about.
17:47He knew what Shane did for a job.
17:49But I just said to Shane, look, just come inside.
17:51What?
17:54Escalating to an axe is a major red flag.
17:57It shows that Lawrence is no longer just simmering with resentment.
18:01He's willing to use overt, violent threats to assert control.
18:08It's a clear shift into dangerous territory.
18:12From that moment on, it just spiraled.
18:15That was when he really did turn into a horrible person.
18:20He was just making their life hell.
18:23It became increasingly frustrating, the amount of sort of times that we were calling and saying,
18:28look, I'm basically telling you that somebody's doing something that's illegal and they shouldn't be doing it.
18:33Horse manure was dropped in the garden.
18:37He'd thrown rubbish and dog waste into her garden.
18:42I just thought he was causing unnecessary trouble.
18:48From that day on, I was never, ever sort of settled in that house.
18:55By this point, the fear for Laura and Shane isn't hypothetical.
19:00It's constant.
19:01When a victim feels unsafe in their own home, sustained, targeted intimidation takes a psychological toll.
19:10They know their neighbour has been in prison in the territorial army and he's a cannabis user,
19:17which in someone prone to control or paranoia can fuel mistrust and distort their thinking.
19:30It got to the point where they simply had to report this man not only to the council,
19:36but also to the letting agents who were renting that property out.
19:43They were really good, actually.
19:44So they said that they would do an inspection as part of the taking over of the properties.
19:50A young female estate agent had to do an inspection of his house.
19:55And when she emerged, she was visibly disturbed.
20:01And ultimately, the estate agents issued an eviction order to Anthony Lawrence.
20:12That week, prior to the 12th of January, his car was away for like one night, then it would be
20:19back and then it was away again.
20:21I think I lived there six or seven years.
20:24And I'd never, ever known him stay away overnight.
20:28What's going on?
20:31Shane just sort of said, well, he's been evicted, so he's obviously, he's obviously moving.
20:36I can't imagine somebody that's been so aggressive towards us is just going to just go so quietly.
20:48Eviction can act as a final trigger for someone already on a path of grievance.
20:54For offenders like Lawrence, that sense of rejection or humiliation can push them from simmering hostility into action.
21:05This is a man who was plotting, planning.
21:09He was getting himself ready to do something.
21:14I just felt like he knows that it's down to us why he's been evicted.
21:19And I can't see somebody like him knowing that and just leaving.
21:24Inside the house next door, Laura and Shane's neighbour, Anthony Lawrence, is collecting an arsenal of weapons.
21:32Anthony Lawrence was acquiring crossbows.
21:36More importantly, he actually altered the bolts to make them more lethal.
21:52In January 2018, Laura Sugden and Shane Gilmer are out for the evening, unaware that their neighbour, Anthony Lawrence, has
22:02broken into their home and is planning a very violent and personal attack.
22:10This isn't random.
22:12Lawrence blames the couple for his eviction and, in his mind, this is retribution.
22:19I didn't think somebody was in my house.
22:21I knew he was in my house.
22:28I've sort of said, what are you doing in my house, Tony?
22:30And I think that's when Shane's obviously heard me say his name.
22:35But I sort of backed into my bedroom.
22:38Shane's then obviously come up the stairs.
22:44Anthony Lawrence fires the crossbow at Shane.
22:50I wasn't aware that Shane was actually shot because the crossbow's silent and Shane just sort of fell down to
22:57the side of the bed.
22:58You know, I pleaded with him. I begged him.
23:01At this stage, Lawrence has become mission orientated.
23:06He believes he has a justification and he's no longer open to reason.
23:11At first, I tried denying that, you know, we haven't made contact with the police.
23:16We weren't anything to do with him being evicted.
23:20But then he told me that he'd been listening to us through the wall.
23:25He's been listening to me for over a year.
23:30I said, that will retract. I'll retract what we said.
23:33I'll ring the police. I'll ring the letting agent and I'll tell them that we've made it up.
23:38But it didn't, unfortunately, have any impact on him whatsoever.
23:44After months of silent surveillance, Lawrence now believes he holds the full picture.
23:51Every word, every decision, every perceived betrayal.
23:57The depth of his resentment has now hardened into something far more dangerous.
24:03Driven by grievance, Lawrence sees violence not as wrong, but as his right.
24:10And that's when he's shot me in the head.
24:17It's gone into sort of the top of my head and I've pulled it out.
24:20That's when the sort of the blood started to sort of drip down my face.
24:23I felt really sort of disorientated.
24:27The sheer brutality of Lawrence's actions defies comprehension.
24:33When he couldn't reload the crossbow fast enough to finish my daughter off, he'd knelt on top of her.
24:43Got control over my hand, actually while I had my hand still on the bolt.
24:47And pushed this crossbow bolt into her throat.
24:53Laura has been shot in the head and stabbed in the neck.
24:59On the floor, bleeding heavily, is Shane.
25:03The crossbow bolt has pinned his arm to his side and so he's unable to defend himself or Laura.
25:11I thought, I'm going to have to fight for both of us.
25:16I actually overpowered him, sort of sat on him then with the arrow that was out of my neck.
25:23And I was trying to sort of injure him with it.
25:26The threat is far from over.
25:30For Laura, this will create what's known as an acute stress response.
25:35Fight, flight or freeze.
25:39But there's no safe choice and Lawrence is still armed.
25:44And at that point, I've just sort of been sat on the floor, like holding Shane's hand.
25:49You know, and he's just said to me, you need to get out of this house now.
25:54I'll never forgive you if you don't.
25:56And look after, look after the baby as well.
26:00So I've obviously gone down the stairs.
26:02I heard him come down maybe like two or three stairs.
26:07I've then left the property, like ran outside into the back.
26:12I've then gone sort of down the street.
26:16The Anthony Lawrence is almost in some kind of trance now.
26:19And when Laura finally manages to make her escape, it's like he come, it's almost like he comes to.
26:32In that moment, Lawrence appears to shift.
26:36The intensity breaks, but only briefly.
26:40It's a pattern we often see in offenders after a violent outburst.
26:46A momentary return to reality, just as the damage is already done.
26:53I needed to get him out of, away from Shane.
26:56So I thought if I can get somebody there sort of quickly, then we're going to be all right.
27:03I've run up that driveway, but I heard his car sort of coming from that direction.
27:09So I knew that he had left the property, but I didn't sort of know which direction he was going
27:14in.
27:14So I've just run and sort of waited for him to go past, so he hasn't seen me.
27:21I just remember knocking on the door and then I collapsed.
27:24I'm Shona Kilner and in January 2018, I was a serving police officer with Humberside Police.
27:34I was contacted in the early hours of Saturday the 13th of January from the Family Liaison Coordinator.
27:43And she informed me that there had been an incident in Little Village not too far from where I lived.
27:50And for that reason she asked if I was available to be deployed.
27:55So I travelled to Hull to the major incident room and received a briefing.
28:02The police had received a 999 call from a lady called Laura Sugden,
28:08who had been attacked by her neighbour and her partner Shane Gilmer had also been attacked.
28:16The neighbour had fled the scene and there was an armed response,
28:22a manhunt out looking for him.
28:32At Hull Royal Infirmary, both Laura and Shane are rushed into emergency care.
28:38I had a feeling that it was in the room next to me.
28:40And in the beginning it sounded really busy in there, there was a lot of sort of noise in there.
28:46And then it just went completely silent.
28:50And then doctors came in and just said, I just said, is, is he dead? And they said, yeah.
29:01My body sort of felt it as it happened. That's the only way I can describe it.
29:06If they'd have come in and said any different, I would have struggled to believe them because I just,
29:09something like strange to say about it, I just felt like something died in me as well.
29:19The sudden loss of a partner in such a violent targeted way can only create not just grief, but deep
29:28psychological trauma.
29:32I saw my heart out for them and for, you know, Shane's family. It just, it was just unbelievable.
29:43I saw my daughter's future being destroyed, really, in that instant.
29:51You know, they said to me that they didn't think that she would have, a baby would have survived.
29:56And then they put the Doppler on and yeah, she was, her heart was mad, beating.
30:05I walked into the, onto the ward and into the room where Laura was and knew straight away that something
30:11horrible had happened.
30:14A scene which was like something from a video.
30:18Armed police everywhere in the hospital.
30:22This man was still on the loose.
30:24They were concerned that possibly he would want to finish the job off, which was to kill my daughter.
30:32Finding Anthony Lawrence is crucial.
30:36And the person whose best place to help the police locate him is Laura.
30:43The first time I met Laura was at Castle Hill Hospital.
30:52Laura was able to tell the police he had left the scene in a vehicle, but wasn't able to give
30:59what direction.
31:01There was intelligence that suggested that after Tony Lawrence had left the scene, he was able to get into a
31:09motor home.
31:10And because the motor home was a hire vehicle, it had a tracker installed.
31:15So through ANPR, they were able to track at some point where the motor home was.
31:23Lawrence had made his way into the North Yorkshire area.
31:26And so for that reason, Humberside police officers and North Yorkshire officers would have worked together to try and locate
31:33him.
31:34At this stage, Lawrence's world has closed in for someone who long believed he was being targeted.
31:42Now he really is being hunted, isolated in a camper van, armed and cornered.
31:49The threat he poses is at its most unpredictable.
31:54Offenders who feel trapped and persecuted often become more desperate and so more dangerous.
32:08The manhunt for Anthony Lawrence continues for 48 hours.
32:13I was constantly saying, you know, any news, any news.
32:17We were able to tell Laura that he had been located in the motor home, that armed response had entered
32:27the motor home and that Tony Lawrence was dead inside the motor home.
32:35He had taken an overdose of tablets.
32:39I was angry. I thought, I can't believe you've destroyed my family and you've killed yourself.
32:46It just seemed all so pointless.
32:51When an offender takes their own life, it can leave victims or the families of victims with a real sense
33:00of injustice.
33:01There's no accountability.
33:03There's no, to use that terrible American word, closure.
33:07And sometimes that lack of justice, that lack of accountability can be as damaging as the crime itself.
33:20I've been deployed as a family liaison officer to several incidents and each incident is unique.
33:27But by far, I think this was the most disturbing, harrowing and distressing deployment.
33:39There was a coroner's inquest.
33:42In order for the coroner to satisfy himself about the circumstances of the death,
33:47then we still have to continue with the investigation.
33:53What police uncover is more than just evidence.
33:57It's the anatomy of a calculated attack.
34:01Each step points to a level of planning that transforms this from an outburst of violence
34:07into something far more deliberate and far more disturbing.
34:15He'd put a recording device on his wall to enable him to hear what Shane and Laura were saying.
34:23He's listening to them talking about him being evicted.
34:29At that point, he started to, in his own mind, I think, think of a way to get rid of
34:36them both.
34:37Not only did he acquire one crossbows, my understanding is he got three crossbows.
34:43He didn't want to take any chances on it going wrong.
34:49They dismantled that partition wall brick by brick and then got rid of the bricks as well.
34:56He would have been in the property at some point having a good look round.
35:00So, yeah, there was something very militaristic about his planning.
35:06In fact, the former Territorial Army reservist had been planning for exactly 12 months to the day.
35:15For offenders like Lawrence, holding onto that anniversary gives the illusion of order, of power.
35:23When others stop listening, the plan becomes the one thing they can control.
35:30It was exactly, you know, a year that he'd threatened to kill us in 2017 with the axe.
35:36And then exactly a year to the day, he'd actually managed to obviously get into our house and kill Shane
35:43and attempt to kill me.
35:53The happy future that Laura and Shane had been planning has been shattered.
35:59A year to the day after Lawrence had first made threats on their lives, he made good on that threat
36:07with devastating precision.
36:10This kind of precision isn't random. Some offenders, driven by grievance, often marked time like a countdown, turning perceived injustice
36:20into a long-held plan for revenge.
36:24Laura just said she wanted to die.
36:27She didn't want to live.
36:30I was already severely depressed anyway, and grieving.
36:34And I thought, how am I going to have this baby?
36:38Like, what happens if I don't feel anything?
36:40I've just got to think about getting, you know, Shane's funeral sorted and looking after Isabelle and just keep focused
36:47on that.
36:50Shane's funeral takes place just weeks after the attack.
36:55And for Laura, heavily pregnant and still in shock, the weight of grief, survivor's guilt and looming motherhood converge all
37:06at once.
37:08500 people attended his funeral.
37:11Now, probably five people might attend my funeral, but at the age of 30, he had done so much and
37:19he'd helped so many people.
37:22It took a while for us to get through to her that this baby was still going to be as
37:28loved with or without Shane here.
37:31It was a part of him that she could treasure forever.
37:36As soon as she was born, it was instant.
37:38She looked just like her dad.
37:40And that sort of helped massively.
37:43You know, although sometimes it absolutely fills me with sadness, but then there's a lot of other times where it
37:47brings me a massive amount of comfort.
37:55With Anthony Lawrence dead, the justice process is left incomplete.
38:01There's no trial, no cross-examination and no answers from the man who caused so much harm.
38:09Instead, an inquest is the only route left to piece together the truth and to understand how a tragedy like
38:20this was allowed to happen.
38:26I'm Gemma Vine. I was the solicitor who represented Laura Sugden at Shane Gilmer's inquest.
38:33So the inquest took place in April 2021 and it was over the space of a week in Hull Coroner's
38:42Court.
38:43And the point of the inquest was to determine essentially how and in what circumstances Shane died.
38:51At the inquest, jurors heard how Shane, despite suffering catastrophic injuries, still managed to call 999.
39:01His final act speaks volumes, not just a fight for survival, but a desperate attempt to protect the woman he
39:09loved.
39:11Laura's first call was around 918, after she'd managed to escape the property.
39:18Shane was then able to call himself at around half past nine and a second call a few minutes after
39:26that as well.
39:27That call remained open until the paramedics arrived.
39:36Once that bolt went in between 200 to 400 feet per second, that's what we're talking about.
39:42Once it went into his side, it's destroyed most of his organs, internal organs on that side of his body.
39:48And that's within seconds.
39:53The force of the crossbow, the targeting of vital areas, all points to an offender who knew exactly how to
40:02maximise harm and who was prepared to follow that through to the very end.
40:09Anthony Lawrence acted with precision, fuelled by resentment and a need to punish.
40:19Shane didn't know where Laura was.
40:22She'd left the bedroom, but he wasn't sure what had happened to her.
40:26And so for that reason, he dragged himself down the stairs to the sitting room to make a call from
40:34the landline because he didn't have his mobile phone.
40:38It was absolutely horrific.
40:40There was blood all over the stairs and you didn't need to be an expert to know what had happened.
40:46He was trying to get down the stairs whilst bleeding to death.
40:52And it was horrific beyond imagination.
40:58The coroner ruled that Shane's death was an unlawful killing, but went further, warning how easily weapons like crossbows can
41:10be bought and their deadly impact when they're misused.
41:15The coroner used his powers under the Coroner's Injustice Act to do a prevention of future deaths report.
41:21And that report went to the Home Office to highlight his concerns.
41:27The bigger question is how easily accessible crossbows are for anyone who can purport to be 18.
41:39When a weapon such as a crossbow is so easily available in our culture, the risks are clear.
41:49In the wrong hands, those risks are about lethal violence.
41:56They lead to murder.
41:59Seven years on, Laura is still recovering from the damage of that single silent shot.
42:08Now a single mother to Isabel and Ella, she's turned her trauma into action, campaigning for tougher crossbow laws.
42:21I could say to Ella when she's older, like, that law has been changed because of what happened to your
42:27dad.
42:27And it's not going to make it any easier.
42:29But the impact that that would have on other people as well, you know, potentially it's going to some people
42:36not being able to just buy crossbows is going to change people's lives.
42:40Shane Gilmer lived to help others.
42:43But in 2018, that life was cut short in a planned, targeted act of violence.
42:50A romantic night out became his final evening alive.
42:56And now through Laura's determination and the push for legal reform, his legacy may yet protect others from the kind
43:05of calculated harm he never saw coming.
43:09And now, I'll see you in the next week.
43:13I'm sorry.
43:13Now, I'm sorry.
43:15But I'm sorry.
43:21I'm sorry.
43:29It's all right.
43:29I'm sorry.
43:29But I'm sorry.
43:30I'm sorry.
43:33I'm sorry.
43:36I'm sorry.
43:37I'm sorry.
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