Murder accused's father threatened to hang her husband 'from the back door' days before he was found dead
A court has heard how the father of a woman accused of killing her husband had threatened to hang him "from the back door" a week before his death.
Kyle Pugh, aged 30, was found with fatal compression injuries to his neck on Aston Drive in Newport on March 22, 2022. He died in hospital the next day.
Amy Pugh, aged 34 and of Stafford Road, Wolverhampton, who was married to but separated from Mr Pugh at the time of his death, is on trial for his murder.
Stafford Crown Court has previously been told how Mrs Pugh claimed she found Mr Pugh in her garden hanging from the back door to her kitchen by his belt after she threw him out earlier that night upon hearing his new girlfriend may have been pregnant.
But the jury has been told by prosecution barrister Julian Evans KC that this was a “fabrication”, and Mrs Pugh had killed her husband in her kitchen during an altercation.
The 30-year-old died as a result of compression injuries to his neck, but Mrs Pugh denies murdering him.
On Thursday (May 15), the court heard from Mr Pugh's sister Joanne Shakespeare.
She told the court that, a week before Mr Pugh was found at the Newport address, Mrs Pugh's father had threatened Mr Pugh on Facebook.
“It was a message on Facebook. Kyle showed me it,” she said. “It was a week before Kyle died. He [Amy's father] had said he would hang Kyle from the back door."
She told the court two pictures - one of the back door to Mr Pugh's girlfriend's house and one of his mother's back door - accompanied the message.
She also told the court that after Mr Pugh's death, Mrs Pugh had told people her husband had “hanged himself from a tree” and not the back door..
She also said that at the hospital on the day Mr Pugh died, she noticed Mrs Pugh's fingers were bruised.
“She said her hands were bruised from doing CPR on Kyle,” she said. “But the bruises were on all her fingers.”
She said Mrs Pugh had told her family that “calmly around the dinner table” Mr Pugh had told her his girlfriend Charlotte Beacom was pregnant, but had said they did not argue about it.
On the same day Mrs Shakespeare met with Charlotte Beacom and confronted her about the pregnancy.
“I asked Charlotte if she was pregnant,” Mrs Shakespeare told the court. “She laughed and said 'no'. She said that Kyle had told her that if he ever wanted to get away from Amy for good, he would tell her that she [Charlotte] was pregnant.”
Earlier, the court had heard from the Pughs' next-door neighbour on Aston Drive.
Stephanie Henderson told the jury that they could regularly be heard arguing at the Newport address.
“They were loud and their arguments would spill out on to the street sometimes,” she said.
She told the court police were sometimes called to the address, and in October 2021, there was a fire in the garage at the Pughs' home, leading to the fire service being called.
She said she had last seen Kyle Pugh in the street on March 22, 2022 at around 3pm.
“Did you speak to him?” asked Mr Evans.
“Yes. I asked if he was back living there,” she said. “He said 'no', he was back for just a couple of hours.”
She said that she asked him if he was still with his girlfriend.
“He said 'yes, but I still love Amy, she is still my wife. The other one is a nutter too',” she told the jury, adding that she never saw him alive again.
However, she told the jury that on the night, she was alerted to an ambulance outside the Pughs', having seen the blue lights.
She then saw Mrs Pugh the following day on her driveway.
“She was holding two knotted hearts,” she told the court.
“Did Amy say anything?” asked Mr Evans.
She replied: “She held up the knotted hearts and said 'he is dead, this is all I have left of him. He has hung himself from a tree in the garden'.”
Mr Sam Robinson KC, for the defence, asked the witness. “She never said tree, she said garden and you inferred tree, didn't you?”
“No, she definitely said 'tree',” Ms Henderson said.
The trial continues.