Tracie Andrews

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Jenna Stephens,[1] also known as Jenna Stephens Goldsworthy, Tia Carter, and better known by her original name Tracie Andrews (born 9 April 1969) is an English murderer who killed her fiancé Lee Raymond Dean Harvey (born 20 September 1971) on 1 December 1996. She was sentenced to life imprisonment after being found guilty of murder at her trial in July 1997 and served 14 years before being released from prison.[2]

Background[]

Andrews was the middle child of three siblings and had several half-siblings.[3] Her parents had a volatile relationship, and they separated when she was 6 years old.[3] The separation had a lasting effect on Andrews and she was deeply scarred by the breakup.[3] Andrew's mother later married another man.[3]

Andrews had a baby daughter at age 21, but her relationship with her then partner lasted barely a year before they separated.[3] Andrews was notably possessive with her partners, not liking them having a life without her or being able to go out without her.[3] Most who knew her also said she had a vicious temper, and that she was prone to aggressive and explosive displays of anger.[3] Andrews had aspirations of becoming a model, but originally began working as a barmaid.[3] She began a relationship with local man Lee Harvey in 1994 and the relationship moved quickly, the pair moving in together only three months after they met.[3] Their relationship was marked by volatility, with both being possessive and jealous of each other's relations with other men and women.[3][4] The couple had a very large amount of aggressive arguments, with neighbours noting that they would shout loudly at each other throughout the day.[3][4] Several times the couple very publicly broke up, only to get back together again and reconcile some time later.[3] This was the case for about two years, and the couple were often violent towards each other.[3] Harvey confided in his mother that Andrews had a noticeable temper.[4]

Previous partners had noted that Andrews could be volatile, easily provoked and that her anger was always intense.[4] She had been violent on multiple occasions with her previous partners.[4][3] Family members and friends of both Andrews and Harvey were uneasy about the couple's relationship, seeing its dysfunctional nature and the numerous fierce arguments between the pair.[4] Harvey had confided in friends the many problems that the couple had.[4] Andrews became particularly infuriated when a family member of Harvey announced he planned to get married, which enraged her as she thought it took away the limelight from her own upcoming marriage to Harvey.[4] Harvey was also infuriated when he discovered that Andrews had aborted their unborn child.[4] Both Harvey and Andrews assaulted each other on occasion, which would cause them noticeable physical injuries.[4] Police were called to the couple's address on multiple occasions after reports of domestic abuse between the two.[4] Police were called to the house in October 1996, only a month before Harvey was murdered.[4] After discovering that Andrews had bitten Harvey on the neck on one occasion, Harvey's mother told him that they should separate for the sake of his daughter.[4] Other family members of Harvey warned against Harvey pursuing a relationship with Andrews, and Andrews's mother also told her daughter to not continue their flawed relationship.[4]

Murder[]

On 30 November 1996, after another day of fierce arguments, Andrews and Harvey went to a local pub for the evening in an attempt to reconcile.[3] Andrews claimed that on the way back to their flat in The Becks, Alvechurch, Worcestershire, during the early hours of 1 December 1996, the pair became involved in a road rage incident with two men.[3] She claimed a car had followed her and Harvey and that two men from the car had confronted and attacked them after stopping them on a country lane.[3] In reality, Andrews had stabbed Harvey over 42 times with a pen knife after they had stopped in his car following an argument.[3] Harvey's sister later said she knew from the time she was told about the murder that Andrews had killed him.[4]

At a press conference on 3 December 1996, Andrews claimed that Harvey was killed in a road rage attack, saying that a "fat man with staring eyes" had stabbed him over 30 times after getting out of a Ford Sierra in which he was a passenger.[2][5] Over the next two weeks, police carried out investigations to track down the murderer of Lee Harvey.

Harvey and Andrew's car had stopped outside a cottage on a country lane before Harvey was stabbed, and the commotion had alerted a male resident living metres away, who discovered Harvey stabbed on the floor and a bruised and bloodied Andrews standing by him.[3] He immediately ran back to his house to call the emergency services.[3] Police noted that Harvey's car had apparently not stopped on the road in any hurry, but had been neatly parked on the side of the road.[3] Harvey had been stabbed in the back, throat and front repeatedly 42 times, and had been fatally stabbed through an artery in the neck.[3]

Police investigation[]

View 200m from the site of Harvey's murder by Andrews, pictured in 2009

Although Andrews claimed she and Harvey had been attacked in a road rage incident, in her press conference of 3 December she said that the driver of the attackers car was not to blame and appealed for him to come forward, something which the police questioned as the driver had supposedly facilitated the attack on Harvey.[3] Andrews seemed to contradict her original statement, giving different times to her original story, and police had to step in and stop her while she told her story to the press.[3][4] Police also noted that Andrews had a lot to say for a person who was supposedly in shock.[4]

After the press conference, police began to question Andrew's story.[3] A witness statement from a child in an adjacent cottage said she could clearly hear an argument between a man and a woman after the car had parked up on the night.[3] Police did not find any evidence that a second car had overtaken Harvey's car to stop it before the attack, noting that there was no tyre marks on the grass next to the narrow single-lane country road that would be expected if such an event had taken place.[3] In Harvey's hand was found more than 80 strands of Andrew's hair, which pathologists determined had had to have been taken from her head with considerable force, i.e. through a physical struggle.[3] Most notably, two witnesses came forward after Andrews's press conference to say that they had seen Harvey's white Ford Escort car driving past them on the lane Harvey was murdered on, that night, but that no car was following it and that no other cars had been seen by them on that lane that evening.[3] This disproved Andrew's story that she and Harvey had been attacked in a road range incident after being followed by a car whilst driving home.[3]

Having invented her story of how Harvey was murdered, Andrews had then gone on to hold Harvey's mother's hand and the hand of his sister while she recounted the fabricated story in the national press conference of 3 December.[4]

Attempted suicide and arrest[]

With suspicion mounting on Andrews, she attempted suicide on the day after the press conference by taking an overdose of pills.[3] Andrews's suicide attempt and the confirmation that no road rage incident could have occurred convinced police of the need to arrest her.[3] She was still in hospital two days later when police first arrested her and questioned her about the murder.[3][6] After being discharged from hospital, she was charged with the murder of Lee Harvey on 19 December 1996 and released on bail.[7][3]

Further evidence[]

Police then discovered a pen knife-shaped blood stain and impression in Andrews boot, convincing police that she had carried the murder weapon in her boot after the murder and had disposed of it at hospital.[3] It was known that there had been a pen knife in Harvey's car on the night of the murder.[4] Andrews had notably spent long periods of time in the toilet at the hospital for unknown reasons, apparently to dispose of the murder weapon.[4] After examining her heavily blood-stained jumper the police also determined that the blood had clearly been sprayed onto her after she had stabbed through Harvey's artery, explaining the distinctive blood stain pattern.[3]

Trial[]

Andrews appeared at Birmingham Crown Court charged with murder on 1 July 1997, and was found guilty on 29 July 1997. The prosecution had been able to skilfully deconstruct her story so as to demonstrate its implausibility.[3] 7 minutes had passed between Harvey being fatally stabbed and him being discovered by the occupant of the adjacent cottage, during which time Andrews had made no attempt to summon help from the houses on the road or from anyone else.[4] Police stated that Andrews had tried to leave the vehicle at the location Harvey was murdered and that an argument had then occurred.[4] Many of Harvey's stab wounds had been in his back, indicating that Andrews had stabbed him whilst he retreated to the car.[4] Andrews's mother stated after the trial that she could not understand why her daughter had invented the implausible story she gave.[4]

Andrews was sentenced to life imprisonment,[2] with a recommendation that she serve at least 14 years. Andrews appealed the sentence, claiming that she was the victim of a miscarriage of justice because of damaging publicity surrounding her case. In October 1998, the appeal was denied.[2]

Confession[]

In April 1999, Andrews admitted that she did stab Harvey to death, and that her entire story had been invented.[3] Changing her story, Andrews then said that she had stabbed Harvey in "self defence".[3] There is no evidence to support this claim, however, particularly as Harvey was stabbed mostly in the back while he apparently retreated to his car.[4][3]

Release[]

Andrews was released in July 2011. She was banned from travelling within 25 miles of her victim's family without supervision. Andrews has a daughter, who was born in the early 1990s.[8] After her release, Andrews changed her name to Tia Carter and altered her appearance, undergoing £5,000 surgery through the NHS to change the shape of her distinctive jaw, and later changed her name again to Jenna Stephens/Jenna Stephens Goldsworthy.[9][10][11][1] In 2017, she re-married, marrying bouncer Phil Goldsworthy.[1]

When plans to release her were announced, a fellow female inmate and former prison lover of Andrews said that Andrews had continued to act possessively and aggressively in relationships while in prison, revealing that Andrews had attacked and strangled her after seeing her speaking with her ex-girlfriend.[12] The woman said she was opposed to Andrews's release and warned she would kill again.[12]

Media based on the case[]

The 1998 Catatonia song "Road Rage" was partially inspired by the murder.[13][14]

Maureen Harvey, Lee's mother, has written a book called Pure Evil: How Tracie Andrews Murdered My Son, Deceived the Nation and Sentenced Me to a Life of Pain and Misery.[15]

In May 2002, the ITV documentary series Real Crime released an episode on the murder titled Tracie Andrews: Blood on Her Hands, featuring interviews with the police investigative team and the mothers of both Andrews and Harvey.[16]

The murder was covered in a 2018 episode of the Pick TV/Sky documentary series Britain's Most Evil Killers.[17]

CBS Reality aired a documentary on the killing in 2018, titled Evidence of Evil: The Road Rage Killer.[18][19]

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b c "Killer Tracie Andrews marries new lover 21 years after stabbing fiance Lee Harvey to death". BirminghamLive. 27 August 2017. Retrieved 11 May 2021.
  2. ^ Jump up to: a b c d "Andrews loses appeal". BBC News. 14 October 1998. Retrieved 15 October 2009.
  3. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak al am an "Britain's Most Evil Killers: Tracie Andrews" (TV Documentary). S02 E07. Pick TV. 2018. Retrieved 9 May 2021.
  4. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y Real Crime (14 May 2002). "Tracie Andrews: Blood on her Hands" (TV Documentary). Series 2, Episode 4. ITV. Retrieved 11 May 2021.
  5. ^ Summers, Chris (25 June 2008). "Killers who cry crocodile tears". BBC News. Retrieved 19 March 2012.
  6. ^ "Police guard 'road rage' victim's fiancee". The Independent. 9 December 1996.
  7. ^ "Road killing fiance 'stabbed in row over hat'". The Independent. 21 December 1996.
  8. ^ "Tracie Andrews 'unrepentant' as she is freed from jail". The Daily Telegraph. 25 July 2011.
  9. ^ Tyler, Jane (28 February 2016). "Road rage killer Tracie Andrews to marry, five years after prison release". BirminghamLive. Retrieved 11 May 2021.
  10. ^ Bonnett, Tom (23 August 2010). "Killer Tracie Andrews Freed For Shopping Trip". Sky News. Retrieved 11 May 2021.
  11. ^ "Toxic Relationship: The Tracie Andrews Story".
  12. ^ Jump up to: a b "Killer Tracie is evil says Welsh lesbian ex-lover". WalesOnline. 28 March 2013. Retrieved 11 May 2021.
  13. ^ "Catatonia: Road Rage". freepages.rootsweb.com.
  14. ^ "Crime & Trial: Rage On The Road" – via soundcloud.com.
  15. ^ Harvey, Maureen (May 2008). Pure Evil. London: John Blake Publishing Ltd. ISBN 978-1-84454-573-5.
  16. ^ "Tracie Andrews Blood on Her Hands". Imdb. Retrieved 11 May 2021.
  17. ^ "Britain's Most Evil Killers". Sky. Retrieved 11 May 2021.
  18. ^ "Infamous 'road rage killer' to feature in new TV documentary". Redditch Advertiser.
  19. ^ "Infamous 'road rage killer' to feature in new TV documentary". Bromsgrove Advertiser.


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