Edward Reeve murder trial: Accused teens left man 'crawling in garden'

A 16-year-old from Christchurch and a 17-year-old from Bournemouth are accused of stabbing and slashing Edward Reeve 12 times at his home address in Heath Road, Walkford, on New Year’s Eve 2021.

He was found four days later, surrounded by blood in his home.

READ MORE: Edward Reeve murder trial: Case enters third day

The boys went to Mr Reeve’s home on New Year’s Eve with three girls after meeting him two days before.

Giving evidence at the trial at Winchester Crown Court, one of the girls they were with on the night said the accused were “giggling and laughing” about the attack.

The girl, known as Girl 1, told the court they left before the alleged attack as they felt “uncomfortable”.

The boys soon caught them up and both said “we shanked him”, the jury heard.

“There was a front grass bit, he was apparently crawling on the grass trying to reach out to them to try help him,” Girl 1 said.

“That's not what I saw, that's what the boys said to us.

"They said that he had crawled outside after they stabbed him in the living room.

“He was then trying to break down the barricade at the back of the living room. When they left he was outside in the garden.”

Under cross-examination, Girl 1 said she was “sure” they said they left him in the garden and she was shown both knives.

She added the accused teens were “hyperactive” when telling the girls what happened and “they were both giggling, laughing about everything”.

Girl 2, the second of the three girls present that night, in her evidence said the Christchurch teen “doesn’t care about things” and the Bournemouth teen can be “not a very nice person”.

She said: "(The boys) came over, they definitely weren't sad, they were quite energetic, they said 'we just stabbed him', at that point I just walked away I was in shock, I didn't know what to say.

“I said (to the girls) can we walk ahead, that's when we started walking back, then that's when we stopped and they did something and they asked me to hold (the knife) and I took it, I don't know why."

Girl 2 said the boys were “fidgety” on the train back from Hinton Admiral to Christchurch and that there was blood on the knife.

Both girls, under cross-examination, denied hearing rumours in school about the night.

The accused boys deny murder. The Christchurch teen admits having a bladed article, the Bournemouth teen denies the same charge.

Neither can be named for legal reasons and the trial continues.