Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Man Stabs Girlfriend in the Face 10 Times, Spent 2 Days With Her Body

Episode Date: July 21, 2025

Phoenix Spencer-Horn was living with her boyfriend, Ewan Methven, in an apartment in Scotland in November 2024. Methven admitted to choking and stabbing Phoenix more than 20 times and then tried to dismember her. Methven spent two days in the apartment with Phoenix's body and acted like he was her in text messages with her mother. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy goes through the horrific case in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW:Take your personal data back with Incogni! Use code CRIMEFIX at the link below and get 60% off an annual plan: http://incogni.com/crimefixHost:Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5Guest:Dr. Daniel Bober https://www.instagram.com/drdanielbober/Producer:Jordan ChaconCRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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. My first thought is someone who was filled with rage, who was completely unhinged, that had a pathological possessiveness and saw her as an object. A beautiful young woman murdered by a man who claimed to love her, her boyfriend. I go through the disturbing case of Phoenix Spencer Horne

and try to explain how someone could commit such a heinous and cruel act. Welcome to Crime Fix, I'm Ann Jeanette Levy. I have to warn you right off the bat that this case is incredibly disturbing. It's horrific. And no person should have to suffer the way that Phoenix Spencer Horn did in her final moments. And her family's suffering, it's unimaginable.

Phoenix Spencer Horn, she was a beautiful, beautiful young woman. And the person who killed her and then dismembered her was supposed to love her and protect her. But he did the exact opposite. He killed her with a fatal blow to the chest. From the outside, Phoenix and her boyfriend, Ewan Methvin, looked like a loving, carefree couple.

They traveled together, they seemed happy, and the young couple appeared to have a bright future. They met at a family party two years ago. So you can imagine how it came as an absolute shock when 27-year-old Ewan Methven admitted to the violent murder of his 21-year-old girlfriend in the home that they shared. Now this all unfolded in Scotland.

The betrayal, it doesn't end there though. After killing Phoenix, Ewan Methven went even further by covering up the crime for two whole days. He pretended to be her with her family and acted as if she was still alive. The murder occurred on November 16th, 2024, but Methven, he didn't call police until the 18th. And when police arrived at the couple's flat in Glen Lee, they found Phoenix's body covered up in the hallway next to two blood-stained knives and a very calm Ewan Methvin.

He plainly tells police, I could not stay here with her like that. I tried to dismember her. I moved her from the bath and put her there Methvin then admits to choking his girlfriend before severing her head He tried to dismember her but he couldn't get himself to do it However records indicate he did muster up the courage Those were his words to call police and explain how he blacked out through the thing Now this is something you'll often hear from murderers,

that they blacked out, they don't remember. And I don't know if it really happens or if they just say that, because they can't bring themselves to explain what they actually did. And what he claims he has no memory of is stabbing Phoenix a total of 20 times with three different knives to the face and her backside before the

final fatal blow to her chest. Evidence proved that Ewan Methven was awake and alert after the alleged murder because he spent the weekend driving Phoenix's car and scrolling through her phone and searching more than 170 times on the internet for pornography. And there are text messages to prove he even made attempts to buy cocaine. Methven claims the murder occurred during a psychotic episode induced by drugs and alcohol.

But prosecutors, they told the court that this whole act was fueled by jealousy and anger since Methven complained to Phoenix that her waitressing shifts made him lonely the day of the murder. Ultimately, Methven ended up pleading guilty to murder and attempting to defeat the ends of justice. That's like an obstruction of justice charge

in the United States. The court heard testimony from a delivery driver who made contact with the couple the night of the murder, mentioning Methven did not appear to be under the influence of any drugs or alcohol. Methven, who tested his luck to defeat justice by concealing his crimes, faced justice head on in the High Court in Glasgow. Judge Lord Matthews addresses him before rendering his punishment. I have rarely read such outpourings of grief

as are contained in the victim impact statements from her family who have endeavored to put into words what can never truly be encapsulated. The sadness and the deep sense of loss, they all feel and will continue to feel thanks to what you did. After Phoenix's murder, her family started a fundraising page and it gained a lot of

traction amassing thousands and thousands of pounds to assist with her funeral costs. Her family donated the leftover money to a women's aid charity and that charity vowed to use the money to protect others and continue her legacy, commenting on social media. Her name, Phoenix, now stands for more than loss. It stands for action, for change, for refusing to let her story end in silence. This is what it means to rise from the ashes, to take this devastating crime and use it to protect others. Phoenix should still be here, but her legacy is one that's lifting others up, and that matters, turning pain into action, refusing to let her name be

forgotten. Now let's get back to what Judge Lord Matthews had to say during sentencing. I can say or do and no punishment I can inflict will ever be enough. The only sentence I can pass in the charge of murder is one of imprisonment for life. I also have to impose a period which must pass, known as the punishment part of the sentence, before you can apply for parole. Whether or not you are ever released on license, if ever, will be a matter for others to decide. Now get this, you and Methvin, he attempted to apologize in a letter.

Methvin wrote in this letter to the judge, I know how loved Phoenix was and how she made her family complete. I cannot believe I have taken her from them. But Judge Matthews, he didn't seem to buy it. He said in court, I have this morning seen a letter written by you, but it answers none of the questions, which must be plaguing the family.

You blame the effect of substances, but that is no excuse. I have taken account of all of the circumstances, the contents of the report, and everything said by your counsel. Although in truth, the only matters of any consequence are your lack of record and the fact that you pleaded guilty. I must at the same time have regard to recent decisions of the appeal court in relation to punishment parts. Now, Judge Matthews sentenced Ewan Methvin to life in prison for Phoenix's murder.

But why would he do this? In the first place, that is still the biggest question. So our content really shows you how important personal safety is, and that's especially true, when it comes to protecting your privacy online. You would be shocked at how much of your personal information is out there, like your address and phone number. Ever wonder why you get so many spam calls and emails? That's because this information, it's all public. That's where our sponsor, Incogni, comes in. It's a service that helps you take control of your online privacy by removing your personal data

from data brokers. Those are huge companies that sell and trade your info without your permission. Incogni actually found more than 50 brokers with my information, and here's the kicker. These data brokers have to remove you from their database if you ask them to. Now, you're probably thinking, Anjane, who in the heck has time to contact a data broker? Well, that again is where Incogni comes in.

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Okay, so to try to break down this horrific case a little bit, which I think is almost impossible, I want to bring in Dr. Daniel Boeber. He's a forensic psychiatrist and he joins us here on crime fix from time to time. Dr. Boeber, thank you so much for joining me. I'm having a really hard time wrapping my head around this one as I do with a lot of the cases we cover here. Ewan Methven says that, you know, he was high on cocaine, I guess. He's a postal worker and for whatever reason, he murders his girlfriend in such a horrific fashion, stabs her in the face.

I'm having a hard time with this. I mean, somebody you love, you do this to, and then he tries to clean up the crime scene, dismember her body, and then he's searching for pornography. So I guess your first thoughts on this case? My first thought is someone who was filled with rage, who was completely unhinged, that had a pathological possessiveness and saw her as an object. There were probably escalating patterns of abuse that we didn't know about. We think about the O.J. Simpson case.

These things sort of crescendo. They don't happen out of the blue. Usually it starts off with a push, a shove, and it gets worse. So I would be surprised if there wasn't a history of violence prior to the incident occurring. And a lot of these people have problems with anger, with rage, with self-regulation, and they see their partner as an object and they have a certain sense of entitlement that this is mine, I possess this and no one is going to come into my territory. So for them, a lot of times it's a threat to their ego, it's a narcissistic injury. They often will isolate their partner from other people that can sort

of give them contrary advice. And then you throw in the substance abuse piece, which again, is certainly not an excuse. It's not an explanation, but it certainly lowers inhibitions and it probably affected his insight and his judgment about this as well And that's the thing with when you start bringing in drugs into the mix and especially a stimulant like cocaine you just don't know how your brain is going to react to that and And we just don't know what else is going on with this guy I mean he could have a lot of mental illness as well that we didn didn't know about that you throw cocaine in the mix and things just go off the rails, right? Sure. And I would throw in the fact that just because he's mentally ill, you know, mental illness per se is not associated with violence, but when you throw cocaine into the mix, as

you said, you know, you're dealing with a substance that could potentially bring on a psychotic episode and you take a little bit of jealousy and you pour cocaine onto the mix, and then that jealousy becomes delusion and a loss of touch with reality. So certainly that is a factor. One of the things that just, you know, some of these crimes that we cover, it just seems like everything appears to be normal. Everything seems okay, and then just boom, something happens. And one thing that really is so upsetting about this case is that Phoenix, the victim in this case, she had apparently

texted her mother that they were eating dinner. They had gotten takeout and they're eating dinner hours before and then apparently whatever happened happened and she was killed. So that to me is just so upsetting. They're sitting there eating dinner according to this text message that she sent and then hours later She's gone Yeah, you know I say this to my patients to my colleagues all the time every family has secrets and people are very good at

Playing roles and projecting a certain image into the world. This is particularly true On social media and with people you really only get two things You get what they want to see and what they show you. And so a lot of times when you have a victim in these types of situations who's involved in an abusive relationship, they will conceal the abuse from their family because they just don't want to hear their family telling them that they shouldn't be in it. And they know at some level it's wrong, but they try to conceal the truth

because they don't want to hear contrary opinions to what they're doing every day. I'm trying to figure out whether the defendant here feels actual remorse. He apparently wrote a letter to the judge, and we have a small excerpt of that that I had read earlier in the show, and he said, I know how loved Phoenix was and how she made her family complete. I cannot believe I have taken her from them. And I find it hard to square that. Maybe he does actually feel some remorse,

but with the gruesome, horrific nature of this crime and then the effort afterward, the decapitation, the effort to- Conceal it. Yeah, conceal it and dismember her and to try to hide this. I don't know if I'm buying it. Yeah, it rings insincere to me. The way he killed her, he mutilated her, it's about as up close and personal as you can get. And then the attempts to cover it up, to conceal it, it just seems hard to believe that at this point

his attorney didn't tell him to write that letter exactly the way he did and throw himself on the mercy of the court. But is he being sincere? Well, only he really knows that. But sometimes I say this to my patients, don't look at what people say, look at what they do. And what he did was absolutely horrific, and he didn't show any mercy to her. One of the things that really astounds me in cases like this is the fact that this guy apparently had no prior record.

And it seems like in a lot of cases, in a lot of homicide cases, we see where people really don't have much of a criminal record before committing a homicide. I'm not saying that's in every case, but we do see that in some cases, that people don't have a criminal record. So either they didn't get caught doing something or they just didn't have a record. So why is that? How do you go from like

no record to homicide? Well, listen, we hear about this all the time, right? Childcare workers who abuse kids and then they say, oh, but the background check, they checked out fine, you know, they didn't have a criminal record. We spoke to their references. People are very good at hiding things. And unless they've come into contact with law enforcement, they may go unnoticed in their entire adult life until something terrible happens. But it seems like something really

snapped in this individual. And maybe the substance use was the fuel on the fire. Maybe that was the thing that put him over the top to do this and just, you know, essentially go completely berserk without any ability to exercise restraint, without any ability to self-regulate because of the gruesome nature of not only the fact that he killed her, but how he did it and how horrific and graphic it was. To me, the drug use is probably a component of this, but it just seems like this guy, there's something seriously, seriously wrong with this guy. And he was a younger guy. And

even the judge in his sentencing statement said, for two days after you murdered Phoenix, you indulged in drug abuse and watched pornography, pretending by text to her mother that you were her. I mean, that's... that's sick and really demented. That comes from a different place to me. That's not just I impulsively, you know, strangle my girlfriend and oh my god, what did I do? I mean, he went on for, you know, two or three days after going along with this and trying to conceal it. I mean, to me, that comes from a little bit of a different place. It's a lot more scheming.

It's a lot more premeditated and very disturbing. What does that say to you? I mean, what can that, what does that tell you, if anything? That tells me that there were probably prior incidents to this, maybe not necessarily where he killed people, problems, but problems in the past with him able to regulate his anger. And again, he puts one face onto the world and maybe he's a totally different person. Maybe this is just a role that he plays

that he projects to the people around him. But it seems like there are much more pathological traits that he has that he's been hiding from a lot of people. And really, Dr. Vober, stabbing, it's such a personal crime because you have to be up close. And it really does take not to be, not to be gruesome, but it takes a lot of energy to do such a thing. And she was stabbed 20 times. And the judge noted that 10 of those, he stabbed Phoenix in the face. And I just...

Yeah, that's exactly what I said, up close and personal. I mean, it's as primal and as savage as it gets to look into the face of the person that you supposedly loved for two years and to put a knife in their face multiple times over and over. Again, to me, that is, it takes a certain level of brutality to do something like that. And so, if anyone wants to try to give him the benefit of the

doubt, which I'm sure his defense attorney will, maybe they'll say that, again, with the drug use, the anger, the rage, the jealousy, that that combination was the perfect storm of violence, but to really do something like that, it takes a very depraved individual. It's completely depraved. I mean, even with the drugs, I can't imagine physically what it takes to physically be able to do something and mentally what it takes to be able to do something. I mean, that, that to me, total lack of empathy, total lack of a conscience. And he would say, in the moment, I was out of control. I didn't know what I was doing.

That's probably what he'll say. But again, it's very difficult to sort of tease all that apart, but it's absolutely brutal and it's absolutely savage. Any final thoughts? No, I think that covers it. Yeah, I don't think there's much more that can be said, but Phoenix was loved by her family and her friends, and this is a horrific crime. And thank goodness, this individual is being walked away,

most likely, for the rest of his life. Dr. Daniel Boeber, forensic psychiatrist, thank you so much for being here. My pleasure. Now, as I mentioned earlier, Phoenix Spencer-Horn, she was a beloved daughter, sister, niece, cousin, and friend. And her family can now take some comfort, just a little bit of comfort, knowing that

you and Methvin, he will never ever be free again. And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time.