10 hours ago
Sick killer boyfriend Damian Homer made me listen as he plunged a knife into my hero mum's chest… then asked for a kiss
ON a quiet spring evening, a sleepy suburban close in Worcester suddenly became swamped with blue lights and sirens.
Police rushed to the house, and Damian Homer opened the door - blood stains down his shirt.
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Inside, two women - his girlfriend, Stacey Hill, and her brave mother, Wendy Francis - lay on the floor in total agony, both stabbed but alive.
Chillingly, Homer had repeatedly hacked at the pair in a deranged rampage, even pausing to ask Stacey for a kiss as she lay bleeding out, forced to listen to the "noise the knife made in my mum".
Hero mum Wendy had rushed to the property to save her daughter, who realised her life was in danger after spotting the knife in Homer's pocket in a reflection from their wardrobe mirror.
As officers forced the brute against the wall and arrested him for attempted murder, he shouted out in desperation.
'Stacey went to stab me, then Wendy came in and they both tried to stab me,' he pleaded.
'I had to protect myself… it's a good job I did otherwise I'd be the one dead.'
Inside, medics treated Stacey, surrounded by a pool of blood, as she pleaded with them to check on her mum and kids.
Police located the two young children and took them outside.
'Keep our eyes tight, tight, tight,' they were told as they were carried past the injured bodies of their mum and grandma.
Stacey, 38, was whisked off to hospital. But her mother, 61-year-old Wendy, went into cardiac arrest. CPR was unsuccessful - and at 21:18pm on March 2, 2024, she was declared dead.
Murder 24/7: Trailer for the BBC Two series following a team of detectives in murder investigations
Now Homer was under arrest for murder.
But with Stacey under critical care, both children terrified, and the only other witness dead, police faced an uphill battle to unravel the truth, as revealed in new BBC Two docuseries Murder 24/7.
Desperate plea
The morning after his arrest, police questioned Homer properly for the first time, and he gave his side of the story.
'I absolutely love that woman', he said, breathing heavily and breaking down as he asked if his partner Stacey is okay.
'We started having a drink - I was watching the football, she was in the front room,' he added.
'Then we was arguing in the kitchen, she was saying 'Get out the house' - there were some knives in the block, and she lent over the grab one.'
Homer then claimed he snatched it off her and put it in his back pocket, before his mother-in-law Wendy burst through the front door and dived on top of him.
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'I've got the knife in my back pocket, and I've pulled it out because I thought it was going to go into my leg,' he continued.
'We fell over and the knife went into her. Stacey was shouting, and she went to grab another knife…and came towards me.
'I launched at her. And she just froze on the spot.'
Damien didn't realise it at the time, but his shameless story gave the police some crucial information.
He claimed Stacey had a second knife - but when detectives searched the house, no second knife was found.
But with Stacey still in hospital unable to speak, the investigators were forced to turn elsewhere for clues.
Detectives spoke to the children, now under the care of relatives - and what they revealed made investigators doubt Homer's version of events even further.
Their social worker reported that they'd been playing with dolls, pretending they were their family.
Daddy was in the kitchen, Mummy was lying down on the kitchen floor, and Nanny's blood was dripping
'That's daddy,' one said. 'He's bad.'
Speaking further, the older one told what he saw.
'One of them got blood on Daddy's T-shirt, and they were screaming. Daddy was in the kitchen, Mummy was lying down on the kitchen floor, and Nanny's blood was dripping," he said.
'Dad was throwing the knife he'd got in his hand, and it hit both of them.'
Soon, further details about Homer's past emerged.
Violent outbursts
His former boss, Clair, revealed that Homer - a lorry driver and former mobile DJ, and well liked in the community - once had an explosive outburst after he was called into a disciplinary meeting for driving without a seat belt while working for the company.
'How f***ing dare they,' he had screamed at her, adding: "Someone's got it in for me in that f***ing place…if I find out it's you I'm going to f***ing hurt you.'
It also emerged that he'd received a suspended sentence for assaulting his girlfriend in 2020.
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Police had also seized their mobile phones, and began scraping them for data and messages to build up a picture of exactly what had happened in the lead up to the bloodbath.
The messages revealed that Homer and Stacey were in the midst of a heated argument, and then, texting her mum, she said: 'I've had to come upstairs…believe me when I say I'm done.'
From upstairs, Stacey texted her partner.
'Find somewhere else to live…you're lucking I ain't called the police on you' she angrily messaged.
'Lol. Only if you buy me out,' came the reply.
Stacey called her aunt - and her aunt then called the police.
'Please can you send officers to my niece's address,' she can be heard saying on the 999 call.
'She's just told me her chap's got a knife in his pocket. Please get there quick.'
Challenged with this new information, Homer admitted that he and Stacey didn't always have the best relationship.
Still, he stuck with his story of self-defence. But then police made a breakthrough.
Stacey - still suffering from her wounds - was finally able to speak.
And when she recounted the horror she experienced that night, police were more certain than ever that Homer's story didn't add up.
Killer kiss
'The day started off like any other day - but in 24 hours everything fell apart,' she remembered.
After spending the day at a garden centre, she recalled how they came home and he started drinking, getting more and more aggressive.
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Eventually, Stacey decided to head to bed.
But she spotted something that sent chills down her spine.
'Damo came upstairs, walking towards me,' she said.
'We have glass wardrobe doors - and I could see that he had a knife in his pocket.'
'I say to my auntie [on the phone], call the police he's got a knife.
'I decided to call my mum, and I said, 'Mum, Damo's got a knife and I think he's going to kill me.'
Stacey tried to get out the house, but Homer pulled her back and threw her on the floor and she had a terrifying realisation.
'I just knew then, that if somebody didn't come quick, I was going to die,' she said.
'As he was swinging me round the kitchen and punching me in the head, I heard my mum come through the door.
'She said, 'Get your hands off my f*cking babbi.'
'I just breathed a sign of relief, because it was like my hero had come to save me - like she'd done so many times before.'
But unlike previous fights, Homer didn't let go when Wendy came over.
What happened next is a moment Stacey will never forget.
'We both ended up curled up on the pulled out the knife out of his back pocket, and stabbed my mum in the left side of her chest, for ages," she said.
'All I could hear was the noise the knife made in my mum.
'I tried to get on my mum to stop any more stab wounds being inflicted, and he started panicking - and as he did that he came down to me and asking me for a kiss.'
By now, Stacey's mind was spinning so much she hadn't even noticed she herself had been stabbed in the chest and had a collapsed lung.
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Hero mum
Instead, her world was a blur of pain as she heard the sound of screams and police dogs barking.
Immediately, her mind went to her mum, Wendy.
'It seemed like it was only a matter of seconds before I was being wheeling into the hospital.
'I kept asking about my mum - but I could tell by the look on their face that it was bad news.'
By now, the police had enough evidence to charge Homer with murder.
His tale of self-defence was discredited - by Stacey's account, and by that of their children's.
There was no second knife, and though he claimed to have only stabbed each of them once, the post mortem found Wendy had suffered four stab wounds, while Stacey herself had five.
The first time he hit me, he said there was no point in ever being happy, because I knew it wouldn't last
Stacey
Ring doorbell footage also captured the moment that Wendy had rushed round to her daughter's house - and in the background she could be heard screaming at Homer to get off her.
Together, it was proof enough that Stacey - not Homer - was telling the truth. He was charged with murder, and attempted murder.
Pleading guilty, Homer was sentenced to life with a minimum of 20 years in November last year.
'Everybody loved Damo,' said Stacey as she looked back on what happened.
'But when you were living with him 24/7 the mask started to come away.
'The first time he hit me, he said sorry. But there was no point in ever being happy, because I knew it wouldn't last."
She added: 'The biggest thing for me was losing my mum. But every time I think about giving up, I look at what my mum did for me.
'She saved my life - and I know now what I have to do for my kids. I have to be the mum to them, that she was to me.'
