THIS is the chilling moment a dog walker is chased by three men before being stabbed to death in broad daylight.
CCTV footage shows Kieran Shepherd, 30, before he was fatally injured in Great Baddow near Chelmsford, Essex, on October 15 last year.
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Joseph Dawe, Zack O’Keefe and Harrison Carpenter, all 20, have pleaded not guilty to murder.
The jury was played the distressing video – which shows the three defendants pursuing Mr Shepherd – during the opening of their trial at Chelmsford Crown Court earlier this month.
The chase happened at 12.24pm, with Mr Shepherd found lying on the floor six minutes later by a cleaner who had been working in a nearby block and dialled 999.
Mr Shepherd was pronounced dead at the scene at 1.22pm that day.
O’Keeffe told the court yesterday he “panicked” and that he “couldn’t believe what I had just done”, reports the BBC.
“If I didn’t defend myself, I felt like mine and my friends lives could have been at risk. I had no idea it was going to be fatal,” he told jurors.
O’Keefe said he had dealt cocaine to the victim about “a month or two” prior to his death.
He said two weeks later, he and Carpenter met Mr Shepherd in an alleyway to deal further drugs but he allegedly “pulled out a knife” and that the pair would “get it”.
O’Keefe told the court he and his co-defendants were not looking for the victim when they spotted him on October 15 – but claimed he shouted at them that his dog bites.
He claimed during the subsequent chase he fell over but when he caught up he saw Carpenter on top of Mr Shepherd but couldn’t see Mr Dawe.
He said a knife was lying on the ground that belonged to the victim.
“He was reaching for [the knife],” O’Keefe claimed. “He was going to use it on Joe, Harrison, or me, or all of us.”
He added that the dog was “being very aggressive” and he feared it would bite.
O’Keefe said he swung the knife and “didn’t think” he’d made contact.
Prosecutors told the court Mr Shepherd was stabbed in the back with a blade as long as 30cm (12in).
O’Keefe said he saw blood and ran out of fear, telling his barrister Michael Borelli KC during questioning he didn’t call an ambulance because he didn’t realise the severity of the injuries.
Tracy Ayling KC, prosecuting, said previously Mr Shepherd was “clearly caught by the three men and shortly afterwards he was found dead, stabbed in the back twice with a knife”.
She said the force used was such that the depth of the wound was 13 to 15 centimetres, going through his left lung and “into his heart coming out the other side of it”.
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Ms Ayling said the prosecution case is that the three defendants are “jointly responsible”.
“One person may have delivered the fatal blows but the prosecution case is the three are jointly liable as they were acting together in a joint attack,” she said.
She continued: “You will hear the defendants called themselves the three musketeers.”
Cleaner Holly Duffett, who dialled 999, said she saw three men run across the street and the man in the middle was putting a knife into the waistband of his trousers, Ms Ayling said.
In footage of the call played in court earlier in the trial, Ms Duffett said a man had a “massive shank”, adding: “I don’t know if they’ve just stabbed him or something.”
CCTV footage was played of the three men in a newsagents at 12.21pm, shortly before the stabbing, and at Carpenter’s grandmother’s address in the village of Stock afterwards, from 1.10pm.
In a statement read by the prosecutor, Carpenter’s girlfriend Olivia McElvaney said she was with Carpenter in Chelmsford on October 15.
She said the pair were sitting on a bench when Carpenter received a phone call and O’Keeffe, who was driving a car, and Dawe, who was a passenger in the vehicle, met with them.
“They call themselves the three musketeers,” Ms McElvaney said in her statement, summarised by the prosecutor.
Ms Ayling said Ms McElvaney “knew Zack O’Keeffe was a drug dealer – she said he didn’t hide the fact”.
“Possibly the plan was to get some food but suddenly Zack stopped the car as if he had seen someone he knew,” said Ms Ayling, summarising Ms McElvaney’s evidence.
She said the three men got out of the car and they were gone for around half an hour.
“When they got back in Zack drove off immediately,” Ms Ayling said.
“She (Ms McElvaney) said Zack kept saying ‘shut up, shut up’.”
She said she thought there was blood on Carpenter’s jeans and she said she thought a knife in a sheath was passed to the back of the car.
“There was also talk between the defendants of the need to burn clothes,” Ms Ayling said.
Ms Ayling said that the men went into some woods in Stock and later got a lift to a caravan in Clacton on Sea.
She said Carpenter attended a police station and handed himself in on October 16, and O’Keeffe and Dawe “weren’t located until October 18”.
The prosecutor said Ms McElvaney had also gone to the caravan at Clacton, and later gave a statement to police about what was said there.
Ms McElvaney was asked by police: “Did they say it was them that was there when Kieran got stabbed and that they were the group responsible?”
Ms Ayling said: “Her answer was yes.”
She continued: “She (Ms McElvaney) said Joe and Harrison had a fight with Kieran but Zack O’Keeffe stabbed him apparently twice in the back.”
Ms McElvaney said that O’Keeffe said it “had to be done”, according to the prosecutor.
“The reason she said it had to be done, according to Olivia, was he (Mr Shepherd) had pulled a knife on a 14-year-old at some time in the past,” Ms Ayling said.
“Zack O’Keeffe said in stabbing Mr Shepherd he was doing the police’s job for them.”
The trial continues.
