Police interview of murder suspect accused of killing wife, played to jury
The police interview of Michael Thompson, that took place three days after his wife’s death last August, was heard at her murder trial yesterday
By Sarah Ward
Warning - this article has a description of graphic sex
Murder suspect Michael Thompson told detectives he ‘had nothing to hide’ in an interview after he had been charged with his wife’s killing.
The taped interview which took place in August last year, three days after his wife Kim’s death at their Northampton home, was played to the jury sitting at Nottingham Crown Court yesterday (June 15).
Former bouncer Thompson, 56, is accused of raping and killing his younger wife Kim Thompson, 43, and is also charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice by trying to cover up his alleged crimes with a faked suicide. He denies all charges.
The prosecution played the one hour 48 minute interview which took place with two detectives at the criminal justice centre in Northampton at just after 10.30pm on August 12 last year. Civil servant Kim had died at the couple’s home in Pinewood Road, Northampton in the early hours of Saturday, August 9.
Asked by detective constable Hollis from the major crime team to explain what had happened Thompson, said:
“Saturday morning at around 2.30am I received a WhatsApp message from Kim saying something to the effect ‘I’m horny and I want sex.’
“I sleep in the top bedroom and she sleeps in the middle [floor]. I came downstairs and she was lying on the bed, sort of upright with her legs out straight.
“What that means is that she wants me to pull her down the bed, lift her legs up and have sex.’
He said they had sex and she had wanted anal sex and because he was not into that he penetrated her anus with his finger.
He said he then left her on the bed looking at her phone and went back to his room and went to sleep. He said he awoke because ‘I tend to get thirsty during the night’ and when he went past the bedroom where Kim had been staying he looked in.
He said:
“She was in the centre of the bed and her head was down. Not to the side how people usually sleep, on her chest.
“So I called her name - there was no response. I then went over to her and grabbed her arm to shake her. It just did not look right at all. [I tried] to wake her up. There was no response. I was shaking her hard as well to try to wake her up.”
He told the detectives he called the emergency services and had been told to turn Kim over and when he did so vomit and liquid came out of her mouth. He said he did chest compressions and tried to blow into her mouth.
He said when paramedics arrived at the home:
“I just stood back and sat on the chair. I think it was only two to three minutes and he just said ‘ there is nothing we can do’. I’m crying, ‘there is nothing we can do’.
“So that was that.”
By the side of Kim’s mattress where she had been sleeping in their daughter’s room, were some alcohol and bottles as well as some medicine packets. The tablets were taken by the police who attended the scene, but the bottles and glass, which contained an unknown liquid, were left by officers. Earlier in the trial on the witness stand the detective sergeant who attended the scene said she had made an error in not seizing the drinking vessels as evidence.
Mr Thompson said in his interview he had asked an officer if he could get rid of the glasses.
He said:
“I said ‘Can I clear up these bottles, with the lemonade and the glass?’ He said he would check. He checked and said ‘Yeah you can clear them up.’
In interview he said he did not clear up the bottles and glasses straight away but after the police had left, when he was doing so, he found a white bag which had inside it several empty blister packs [of medicine]. He said the police had not left a card for him to contact them so he put the bag down the side of the wardrobe.
Asked towards the end of the taped interview what he thought had happened to Kim, he said:
“What do I think? I don’t know. All I do know is the outcome. How it got to that, I don’t know. I can only say what I have seen.”
During the interview, the detective asked Thompson what mobile phones he had and he said he had a Samsung phone that had been taken by police and another similar one that was at home on the kitchen counter, which he used to watch films. Asked what the pin number for the phone was he said he had already given it to a police officer as ‘I have got nothing to hide. He asked for it and I gave it to him.”
At the end of the taped interview, prosecutor Miranda Moore asked detective constable Steele, who was on the witness stand, whether he had given police access to his Facebook account and passwords and the officer said that Thompson, through his legal team, had denied access.
In the taped interview about his marriage, Thompson said he filed for divorce in 2024, but his wife had been ‘dragging it out’. He said he did so because the relationship was not working, as his wife was a hoarder.
Asked if there had been issues in the relationship he said:
“Yes there have been lots of issues. Kim was very promiscuous.”
When the detective asked him to elaborate he said ‘she seeks attention from lots of males on the internet’.
Questioned about how he knew this he said he had accessed her phone and iPad. He said he was aware of her new relationship but when asked if he knew anything about Kim’s new partner he said: “I’m not really interested to be fair.”
He said he had taken a screenshot photo of her new partner from Facebook and asked why, he said he did not know why he had done it.
In the interview he told police he had Kim’s number filed in his phone under the name ‘Amberley’. Asked why, he laughed and said it was a reference to Amber Heard. [Heard was married to Hollywood’s Johnny Depp and the pair had an acrimonious court case].
He said he took screenshots of WhatsApp conversations between him and his wife so there could be no dispute about what had been said.
In the morning session the court was given the sequence of events by the prosecution which included details that in the hours before his estranged wife’s death Thompson had looked at sexualised videos of her on his phone and also played a previous voice message in which she said the break up of their marriage ‘ is all my fault’ and ‘it is done because of me, because of what I have done.’
The court also heard about messages between Thompson and his older children on the days after Kim’s death. They had been discussing the arrangements for how to tell Thompson’s other two children - who had not been at the house - about their mum’s death.
The trial continues.
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Previous coverage of the trial
Northampton murder trial” ‘I can’t wake my wife up’
Northampton mum murdered in home by husband who then tried to fake her suicide, court hears
‘If anything happens to me, please know it was him’
Northampton murder trial: Kim Thompson’s colleague tells jury accused husband strangled her
Murder accused threatened to tamper with estranged wife’s car brakes, court hears
Pathologist tells jury he believes Kimberley Thompson died by suffocation
Unhappy domestic life of Thompsons revealed in texts and messages