Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Dad 'Play Fighting' Stabs Daughter in Chest Killing Her

Starting point is 00:00:00 Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this law and crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. There's nothing about the kitchen. I don't understand how this happened. Honestly. That was Simon Vickers talking to police shortly after he stabbed his daughter. But detectives say it was no accident. I'll tell you about the death of Scarlett Vickers and where the case stands now. This is a law and crime legal alert. Recent allegations against the multi-billion dollar

Starting point is 00:00:36 video game industry claim video games are engineered for addiction. The claims include making sense of the magical hold video games seem to have over people where they cannot put the controller down. Every win triggers a hit of dopamine that creates a cycle of compulsion, which disrupts daily life and harms mental health. Our legal sponsors are taking on this industry that has, at many times, put profit over safety. They are working to potentially get compensation for all of those impacted. If you or a loved one have suffered physical or mental health issues due to video games, visit vgclaims.com slash lawandcrime to answer less than 10 questions and check your eligibility to file a claim. Welcome to Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. Scarlett Vickers was a 14-year-old

Starting point is 00:01:22 girl living with her parents in Darlington in the United Kingdom. She wasn't unlike a lot of girls her age. She had a TikTok account and posted videos that showed her taking selfies that were set to music. Sadly, Scarlett's last video posted on July 4th of 2024. The next day, on July 5th, police in Darlington said Scarlett died in her home at the hands of her father, Simon Vickers. Paramedics were called to the home after Simon Vickers stabbed Scarlett in the chest. He said it was an accident. Listen to what he told police at the station.

Starting point is 00:01:56 Is there anything else you can think of you need to tell us so we can look after you? I just want to know how my daughter's doing. We're mucking about, playing in the kitchen. For some reason, this has gone really weird. I mean, we're mucking about, it's pfft, pfft, I can't believe this, I don't even know what it is, just a pint. What, what, please someone tell me. What's going on? At the minute mate, we've got no new information. We've got to go along with it, we've got no new information. I don't know where the f***ing veterinarian stays away. I don't know where he's at, man.

Starting point is 00:02:28 They're cooking tea. They're smoking a bottle in the kitchen. I don't understand how this is happening. Honestly. Now, as you heard, Simon Vickers told police that he and his 14-year-old daughter were play fighting, mucking around in the kitchen and cooking tea, and somehow a knife ended up in the heart of his daughter. Police didn't seem to buy it.

Starting point is 00:02:51 Crown prosecutors showed the knife that stabbed Scarlett at Simon Vickers' trial. The blade measures about 21 centimeters in length. It's a long knife. The testimony at trial was that the knife went 11 centimeters into Scarlett's chest. That's around four inches. Again, Simon Vickers, as you heard, said this was play fighting.

Starting point is 00:03:10 But there was evidence introduced at trial that Crown prosecutors said contradicted that. The Times.com reported that the first paramedic on scene at the Vickers home was quoted by Crown prosecutors. Prosecutor Mark McCone said, Mr. Crow said that initially the defendant and Scarlett's mom said they were unsure how the injury occurred. And then Scarlett's mom said that Scarlett and her dad were play fighting and chucking knives at each other. Mr. Crow said that the defendant picked up a knife off the side counter of the kitchen and said, we were messing on. We were play fighting and she lunged towards me and it just went in. So that statement from a paramedic was likely problematic for Simon

Starting point is 00:03:51 Vickers. At first, he and his partner said they didn't know how Scarlett was injured. And then the story changed to play fighting and Scarlett lunging toward her dad. The jury heard directly from Simon Vickers, who said it started with Scarlett tossing grapes at him. The stabbing happened at 10.45 p.m. at night. The BBC reported that Simon Vickers said he had about four glasses of wine that night while watching football. He said he and his partner, who was Scarlett's mother, and Scarlett were a happy family, and he claimed they were playing around and he thought that he had thrown a pair of tongs at his daughter when they were joking around and was surprised when he saw his daughter was bleeding, realizing he had actually thrown a knife at her. But the prosecution said that couldn't be true, and the wound was too deep to have been an accident, and the knife

Starting point is 00:04:40 would have had to have been in Vicker' hand very firmly. A pathologist testified that the knife would have gone into Scarlett's chest at a 90-degree angle. The jury found Simon Vickers guilty of murdering Scarlett. The account provided by Simon Vickers about how his daughter Scarlett sustained a fatal injury is wholly inconsistent with the forensic evidence in this case. As part of our case against him, the Crown Prosecution Service instructed a medical expert whose analysis made it clear that the nature of the wound sustained by Scarlett could only have been caused if the knife used had been firmly gripped as she was injured. We have worked closely with Durham Police to meticulously piece together the tragic events which led to Scarlett's death. Our thoughts remain with her family, for who this must remain

Starting point is 00:05:25 a difficult time. Superintendent Craig Rudd of the Durham Police read a statement following the verdict. We may never know why or what caused Simon Vickers to do what he did that night. And sadly, today's verdict will not bring Scarlett back. But he will now face the consequences of his actions. I want to bring in Phil Waters. He is a retired homicide detective, and he has seen a lot of interrogations and statements over the years. So, Phil, I'm wondering really what your reaction is to Simon Vickers' statement there. We only saw about 40 seconds of it, but he's telling the police, you know, he can't he doesn't know how this happened and that he and his daughter were just, he says, mucking around in the kitchen. Well, good morning, Anjanette. It's great to be with you again. I will tell you, I watched, of course, 40 seconds is not really a proper timeframe in an interview to really gauge the totality of it.

Starting point is 00:06:27 But the 40 seconds is interesting. He does exhibit some things that I kind of picked up on. The setting for the interview is troublesome to me. I mean, you've got him in an area that's got all sorts of distractions around it. They're sitting, I guess, right here at the police station in the office. You've got two people in different spots. I guess it's the way they do it in the UK, but I'd sure like to give them some advice on that kind of thing. However, the the, um, the interview, that little, that little clip, and I believe that 42nd interview, it appears to be that it is edited. It looks like you've

Starting point is 00:07:12 got one section, then all of a sudden it snaps to another. Um, that may be just the way that comes across, but when he's talking about what had happened, of course, my question for him is define what mucking about is. That really means nothing. And so I would want to know what define that. What was what were you doing? Describe to me what you were doing. And and he's in this kind of mind frame that he doesn't know what happened. He doesn't know what happened.

Starting point is 00:07:48 Well, there's only two people there. He does admit to having four glasses of wine. Right. So I would think that there's maybe a level of intoxication. But when he's sitting there, I just noticed that when he does use his hand gestures, there's one point where he talks about she was getting weird and he kind of does this. Well, when a person uses a circular motion to express a point, in general terms, they're speaking, they're making a truthful statement. Now, there is another point where he gets to where he starts talking about what happened and you see him do a couple of chops.

Starting point is 00:08:26 When he starts those chops, that's an indication that there's going to be some sort of deception. Now, of course, I didn't get to see the entire interview. So I would I would be curious to see if there's throughout the interview. He's doing the chopping thing when he gets to the critical points. And then he goes back to closing off. So he puts his hand in front of his chest and he closes off. And he's trying to act like he's confused. And then at the end of it, he uses an L-Y word,

Starting point is 00:08:57 which when you hear that coming, he's trying to somehow justify what he has just said by trying to be a distraction. So if the last word that he says in that interview is something to the effect, I don't know what happened, honestly. So the minute you hear that come out of his mouth, in my world, just the little bit we saw here, he's certainly not being full disclosure about what happened and his discussion later on about he threw the knife, a kitchen knife and so forth and so on. It just it makes no sense. Yeah, it's it's a very strange thing. And I've

Starting point is 00:09:39 read several articles, several news stories about, you know, what happened in the trial. I mean, I just wish the UK would put cameras in these trials. You know, the story starts with, oh, he and his partner, who is Scarlett's mother, didn't know how this happened. You know, that's part one. Then it evolves into they were playing, they were play fighting, mucking around. There's one report out there that said that it started with Scarlett throwing grapes at her dad, you know, and then he claims that I guess his wife or his partner rather got the knife out to cut garlic bread. Now this is like 1045 at night. I mean, people do all kinds of things and that he thought, you know, Phil, apparently at one point he's got the knife, right?

Starting point is 00:10:31 There's a knife on the kitchen counter, according to one account, to cut garlic bread, which is a pretty sharp knife if you look at the knife that was in the photo. But there's a knife on the counter to cut garlic bread, which, you know, you can use whatever knife you want. But he thought he threw tongs at her. He thought he threw tongs at her. And just the thought of even throwing a kitchen utensil at somebody is very strange to me. But tongs and a knife. I mean, look at that. Those are two totally different items. And I mean, I've covered cases and i was telling somebody this a couple weeks ago where you know like an officer involved shooting where they said you can throw a knife and it can be fatal from 21 feet away or something like that but these are two totally

Starting point is 00:11:17 different types of things and we're talking about it went straight into her chest, into her heart, four inches in. So there's a lot here that doesn't make sense. Well, you're spot on, Anjanette. The knife that's being used, I've seen the picture of the knife, and it's a kitchen knife. It was sharp. It looks like it appears to be a sharp knife, but those knives are not. He says he threw the knife at her. Those knives are not designed for throwing to begin with. They're not balanced for that type of to to to stick into something or someone. So that story is questionable to begin with.

Starting point is 00:12:10 And then when you have this, as you pointed out, when you have this first manifestation of this is he's throwing tongs. Well, did the tongs not make the point? So now we've got to pick the knife up and we've got to throw the knife. The whole story makes no sense. not make the point. So now we've got to pick the knife up and we've got to throw the knife. The whole story makes no sense. So were I to interview this individual, I'm going to go back into his relationship. I want to start with his relationship with his child, with his 14-year-old. I want to know what the backstory here is, because there is a huge backstory that we are not being told about the family dynamic. Now, I've read where the mother, his wife has said that she believes him. Now, she was present in the home, as I understand it, but not present in the kitchen when this occurred. So she's not a

Starting point is 00:13:03 witness in the sense an eyewitness to it. So it's a lot of questions, a lot more questions than there are answers in this story. Yeah. There's a lot of reporting out there too that said that, you know, this was a happy family by all accounts. There were no issues that anybody knew of at school or any reports of there ever being any issues with her, with her family. But how often do we hear that you just, you just never know what goes on behind closed doors. And this was in this middle of the summer. We don't know what happened. You know, there's another part of this, Phil, where there was another account in one of the news reports about how he claimed that Simon Vickers claimed that at one point, Scarlett, he had the knife and she lunged toward him.

Starting point is 00:13:52 And that's when this happened. I mean, I feel like there are these varying kind of accounts of what happened that even if he's got the knife and she lunges toward him. I mean, they're saying it went four inches into her chest, 11 centimeters. That is, my God. I mean, it still seems like that would take some force for a knife to go into the chest is placed, to me, shows intent. There's just the throwing thing, like I said, that can be disputed and pushed aside, as far as I'm concerned, the evidence here in this case, which is what I always follow, is that something occurred in that kitchen that caused him either because he had had four glasses of wine. I mean, were those little goblets or were they big tumblers? I mean, it depends on how much he's consumed. There is a level of intoxication there. And whatever she did that set him off, caused him to react in a way, and I'll

Starting point is 00:15:08 tell you what, I've said this my whole career, anyone, anyone is capable to react under the right set of circumstances. So for him, whatever those circumstances were, caused him to lash out at his daughter and sink a kitchen knife four inches into her chest and it killed her. So again, as you've already stated, there's a lot we don't know here. I'd want to know the backstory. If I got a chance to interview this guy, that's where I would start. What's the relationship? How do we get to

Starting point is 00:15:45 that point in time? And what's the backstory behind what really happened in that kitchen? Yeah, it's a heartbreaking, heartbreaking case. I mean, this was a 14-year-old girl. The police say she would have been celebrating her 16th birthday this year. And it just makes you wonder. I mean, the part about the alcohol gets me wondering what could have been going on here. Watching football all day, drinking four glasses of wine. As you said, we don't know how big the glasses were. The family is all in the house. We go from not knowing how this happened to play fighting, grapes being thrown, maybe then tongs, I mean, throwing of knives possibly, and then maybe her lunging. It's just very, um, it's very odd. And I go back to thinking about the force required, you know, there's, you know, that's an accident or whatever lunging. I, I, I just, I don't know.

Starting point is 00:16:40 Well, let's, um, let's remember one thing too. Yeah's let's remember one thing, too. Yeah, let's remember one thing, too. This this four glasses of wine. This is what he says. This is what he admits to. So I they're watching football all day long. Soccer, they're watching that all day long. And I can guarantee you that four glasses of wine, you can probably at least

Starting point is 00:17:09 double that. I'm sure the consumption of alcohol, alcoholic beverages throughout that football game exceeded much more than four glasses. And this is like you stop a drunk and you say, how much have you had to drink i had two beers they always say that so perhaps in the uk the answer is oh i had four glasses of wine but i would i would say when he makes an admission and to me that's an admission that you can expound on that and then i would want to well, let's get down to how many, how much wine did you actually consume? Describe that for me. I mean, get this guy to talk and not just talk in these circles about, I don't know what happened.

Starting point is 00:17:55 It was crazy. She was acting weird and so forth and so on. So perhaps she was acting weird. And why was she acting weird? That's the question that I would want answered. So yeah, again, this is just a, it's a horrible, horrible thing when a parent murders their child. And this is, it's just unexplainable, at least in this particular case. We don't know what happened in that kitchen. Yeah, and he's maintaining it was an accident.

Starting point is 00:18:30 He'll be sentenced next month, Phil, so we'll keep an eye on it and see if maybe any other information or any other videos come out. Thank you so much for joining me. You bet. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it, Anjanette. And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time.

Pet Camera - EBO Air 2

Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Dad 'Play Fighting' Stabs Daughter in Chest Killing Her

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.

Your Ad Here

Pet Camera - EBO Air 2

Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Dad 'Play Fighting' Stabs Daughter in Chest Killing Her

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.