Two teenage brothers who murdered a fisherman on an island in the River Thames and then boasted about the savage attack are facing life sentences.
Shane and Lenny Crawt, now aged 19 and 18 respectively, battered Scott Wilkinson, 48, to death on an island near Sunbury Lock in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, shortly after 11pm on 27 July 2016.
Mr Wilkinson’s body was found floating in the water the following day close to where he was camping.
Mr Wilkinson would often spend days at a time camping and fishing on the island, known locally as Donkey Island.
Minutes before the attack he had agreed to call his partner to make sure she got home safely after leaving him.
A post mortem found he died of severe blunt impact injuries to the head and also suffered fractured ribs along with cuts and bruises to his head, trunk and arms.
Shortly after beating him to death, the siblings, accompanied by cousin Charlie Smith, 24, boasted to another group of boys in a nearby park: ‘I wouldn’t say anything if I were you because we killed someone tonight.’
The two brothers, who turned on each other in the witness box, were both found guilty of murder following a trial at Guildford Crown Court on Friday.
Smith was cleared of murder but convicted of manslaughter.
Helen Ellwood, from the CPS, said: ‘This was a savage attack on a man who just wanted to enjoy peace and quiet and his passion for fishing.
‘The defendants sought to blame each other for the killing, but we were able to provide a compelling case to the jury that each one of them had knowingly played a part in the attack, regardless of who was responsible for landing the fatal blow.’
Prosecutors were able to pin down the time of the attack by analysing data from Mr Wilkinson’s cardiac implantable loop recorder which was inserted in 2013 to monitor his heart rate.
A spike at 11.18pm on July 27 was potentially caused by the onslaught upon him and jurors heard he lay dying for several hours until 2.31am when readings were inconsistent with a living person.
Officers combed through CCTV footage of routes to and from the island to prove the three relatives were the only others there when Mr Wilkinson was set upon.
Mr Wilkinson’s partner saw the trio when she delivered food to him the night he was attacked, while DNA and fingerprint evidence also tied them to the scene.
The killers’ own boasts after the ambush also helped condemn them after prosecutors were able to play a mobile phone recording of the brothers bragging about ‘laying into’ their helpless victim.
Ms Ellwood said: ‘It is highly unusual for a murder case to consist of so much evidence of what the defendants told other people about the events of that night.
‘By speaking to others about what had happened, the defendants inadvertently helped to build a stronger prosecution case against them, which eventually led to each of them admitting they were on the island when Scott was attacked.’
They will be sentenced at Guildford Crown Court on Tuesday.
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