Did Michael Thompson kill another woman before his wife Kim?
Murdered wife Kim Thompson told a friend ‘If I ever leave him he will kill me and get away with it as he did before’
By Sarah Ward
Former bailiff Michael Thompson has today been convicted of killing his wife Kim.
He raped and then suffocated his wife of 19 years at their Northampton home before staging the murder scene to make it appear that Kim had taken her own life.
What NN Journal can now report is there is suspicion that Thompson may also have killed his first partner Rhonda Anderson 25 years earlier. However despite opening a murder investigation into Rhonda’s 2000 death at the end of last year Northants Police did not charge Thompson for her killing due to ‘insufficient evidence’.
Rhonda, known to friends as Roni, was the mother of Thompson’s two elder children Sasha and Sebastian, and died after she was electrocuted in a bath at her home in Hembury Place in the Briar Hill area of Northampton on July 8 2000. The children were just six and eight at the time of their mother’s death. Rhonda was found after friends and relatives broke into the home after trying to call her on the phone.
A former shop worker, an inquest carried out into her death by Northants coroner Anne Pember in October 2000 ruled her death was accidental, with reports from the time saying the coroner stated Rhonda had been ‘extremely foolish in the extreme’ to take an electric radio into the bath with her.
But after Kim’s death and suspected murder, Northants Police decided to reinvestigate Rhonda’s death and launched a murder inquiry.
The Crown Prosecution Service had wanted to tell the jury about the circumstances of Rhonda’s death, but after legal arguments before the start of the trial, Judge Shant ruled against it.
Thompson’s barrister Jonas Hankins KC argued it would be difficult to contrive a more prejudicial piece of information to put before jurors and said the notion the jury would not speculate if told about Rhonda’s death was ‘fanciful’.
So a reporting restriction was put in place which prevented the media from reporting the circumstances of Rhonda’s death.
On his conviction today, the restriction has been lifted and we are now able to report the details.
‘Kimberley told me that he killed his first wife.’
During the trial a number of friends of Kim, who gave evidence under oath, told the jury about what they knew of the Thompson’s marriage. They said Kim was scared of her husband, who beat and raped her and had considering leaving, but did not do so as he threatened to kill her and hurt her family.
What they were not allowed to say, and what they were actively steered away from, was the things Kim had said about her husband’s previous relationship with Rhonda.
Kim’s friend from secondary school Annette Collins said in her police interview that Kim had confided in her about the abuse she suffered at the hands of Thompson.
She said:
“This was the first time that Kim told me the extent of what was happening. Kim told me that he said to her that if she ever left that Thompson would kill her.
“Kimberley told me that he killed his first wife. Kim told me Michael told her he did it.
“All I can say is what Kim told me.”
On the witness stand, a visibly upset Mrs Collins told the jury:
“He had threatened to kill her so many times, it just became normal. It just became a normal part of the conversation [between her and Kim].”
She told the court that Kim had told her that her husband had warned her that if she went to the police or went to friends for help he would kill her. She said after a time when Kim said she had been raped by Thompson, she begged her to go to the police, but Kim was too scared to.
She told her friend Thompson would not go to prison if he killed her because ‘he is not going to do it in a way he will get caught. It will be an accident or something like that.’
According to Mrs Collins, Thompson had told his wife he had looked after his children on his own before and even if he did not manage to kill her she would be ‘eating through a straw’ for the rest of her life.
Another friend from Kim’s teenage years, Danielle Harrison said similar things in her police interview.
She said:
“Kim would tell me that people were telling her that Thompson had killed his first wife because she had tried to leave him.
She said her friend did not believe it because Thompson had an alibi - he had taken the children swimming on the day of Rhonda’s death. In her interview she said sometime between 2012 and 2014 Kim had told her that ‘that if anything was ever to happen to her, it was Thompson.
“If I ever leave him he will kill me and get away with it as he did before.”
Work colleague Hyancith Francis told police in her interview that Thompson had said he would ‘do time’ and kill her. She said Thompson had been questioned over his first wife’s death (Thompson and Rhonda were not married) and said there was a ‘question mark hanging over whether he had killed her or not.’
Police statement
The media had been briefed by Northants Police back in December about the investigation into Rhonda’s death, but had been prevented from reporting any details in case it prejudiced the Kim Thompson murder trial.
DCI Torie Harrison for Northamptonshire Police said today in a released statement:
“Early in our investigation into Kim’s death we were told of the death of Michael Thompson’s former partner Rhonda Anderson, 29, who died in July 2000.
“Rhonda’s death had been investigated at the time, and an inquest ruled it was accidental. However, after concerns were raised about the circumstances of Rhonda’s death and in light of what happened to Kim, we launched a fresh murder investigation.
“As part of our enquiries we arrested Michael Thompson, 56, on suspicion of murder.
“We also revisited reports from 25 years ago and issued a fresh appeal for anyone who may have known Rhonda at the time to contact us.
“This work has now concluded, and it has been determined there is insufficient evidence to take the investigation further, with no further action being taken against Michael Thompson.”
