By Sophie Lewis | The Indie Leaks

Some murder cases are horrific because of the violence.

Others are horrific because of the psychology underneath them.

The murder of 20-year-old Bethany Hill was both.

Even now, nearly a decade later, the details sound less like a real criminal case and more like the plot of a psychological horror film. A young woman trapped inside a bizarre, controlling living arrangement with her ex-boyfriend and her best friend. A one-bedroom flat. A tangled emotional triangle. Dependency. Isolation. Financial control. Sexual confusion. Escalating tension behind closed doors.

And eventually, unimaginable violence.

On 3 February 2016, Bethany Hill was murdered inside a ground-floor flat in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. Her killers, Jack Williams and Kayleigh Woods, would later be convicted of murder and jailed for life.

But the story surrounding the killing is what continues to shock people.

Bethany had previously dated Jack Williams briefly when they were younger. After the relationship ended, she attended college in Stratford where she met Kayleigh Woods. The two became close friends.

At the time, Woods was identifying as transgender and had entered into an on-off relationship with Williams. Despite this already deeply complicated dynamic, all three eventually ended up living together inside the same small one-bedroom flat.

According to evidence heard in court, the arrangement inside the property had become toxic long before Bethany was killed.

The prosecution described the household as volatile and emotionally unhealthy. Messages recovered by investigators showed tensions around money, responsibilities and control. Bethany was reportedly expected to cook and clean while Woods tightly controlled finances inside the flat.

The relationships between the three were described in court as deeply confused and emotionally entangled. Prosecutors said Woods and Bethany had discussed having a child together using home conception kits, despite Woods simultaneously being in a relationship with Williams.

It was chaos disguised as domestic life.

Then came the final hours.

Evidence presented during the trial revealed Bethany had called her father crying shortly before her death, begging for help to move out of the flat. She never got the chance.

During the early hours of 3 February 2016, prosecutors said Williams and Woods restrained Bethany by binding her wrists with duct tape before repeatedly attacking her neck with a blade. Her jugular vein was eventually severed and she bled to death in the bathroom.

The prosecution described it as a “sadistic killing”.

When emergency services were finally contacted many hours later, Bethany’s body was already in rigor mortis.

Initially, attempts were allegedly made to present the death as suicide, but prosecutors said the scene told a very different story. The injuries were not consistent with self-inflicted wounds.

During the trial at Warwick Crown Court in January 2017, the jury heard disturbing details from inside the flat, including the discovery of a bound and gagged Barbie doll allegedly found among possessions linked to Woods. Prosecutors argued it pointed toward violent fantasies involving restraint and control.

Both defendants denied murder.

The jury did not believe them.

Jack Williams and Kayleigh Woods were both convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment with minimum terms of 26 years.

The case later sparked wider controversy because of prison placement issues involving Woods. After initially being placed in the male prison estate, Woods was later transferred to a women’s prison before reportedly being moved back again following an incident involving another prisoner.

That aspect reignited public debate around risk assessment, prison policy and safeguarding inside the UK prison system.

But beneath all of the headlines, politics and controversy is the part that matters most.

A 20-year-old woman died in terror inside a flat she had desperately wanted to escape.

And one of the most chilling details of the entire case remains the simplest one.

She asked for help before she died.