Ellie Gould was an intelligent 17-year-old girl with a bubbly temperament living in Calne, Wiltshire, located in southwestern England. She had a love for riding horses and dreamed of joining the mounted police one way. At the time, she was dating another boy her age by the name of Thomas Griffiths, a swimmer and rugby player. The couple went way back, having been in each other’s lives since Year 7 and both attended high school together where they were straight-A students.
On May 2, 2019, Ellie had confided in friends that she had broken off their three-month relationship and that Thomas wasn’t taking it very well. But, truly, the teenage girl hadn’t the slightest clue just how badly her former lover was handling the rejection until the following morning. On May 3, Thomas walked out of school, entered his car, and made the drive to Ellie’s residence on Springfield Drive. Upon entering her house, he pleaded for her to take him back, but Ellie’s mind was already made up. Consumed with rage, he then unleashed a vicious attack that will come to haunt her parents forever.
Initially, he attempted to strangle her. Then he grabbed a knife from the kitchen and stabbed her in the neck a total of 13 times. After she was dead, he attempted to clean the bloody murder scene using cloths. He wiped the blade of the knife on an apron before sticking it back in her neck, strategically wrapping her hand around the knife’s handle so as to make it appear as though it was a suicide. When he went home, he changed into new, clean clothes and disposed of the blood-stained cloths as well as other incriminating items in the woods behind his house.
To explain the series of scratch marks on his neck inflicted by Ellie’s dire attempt to fight for her life, he told a friend that it was a result of self-harm due to his distress over the breakup. He then went back to school and began shooting texts to the now-deceased girl’s phone asking where she was. Ellie’s body wasn’t discovered until 3pm, when her father returned home, walked into the kitchen, and found her laying in a pool of her own blood--a sight that no parent should ever have to see.
‘’The image of Ellie lying there on the floor has haunted me ever since that afternoon,’‘ said Matthew Gould. ‘’It fills my thoughts when trying to sleep and hijacks my mind when trying to go about my day.’‘
Thomas pleaded guilty for the murder in court and expressed remorse. "I feel confused and angry at myself that I was able to hurt someone so special to me." He was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum of 12 years and six months served.
