Jonathan Creswell: Murderer apologized to victim Katie Simpson as she lay in the coffin

According to the victim’s mother, the crazed killer could be heard making a gruesome apology to show jumper Katie Simpson as she lay in her coffin, touching her arm.

The shocking revelation will be made by prosecutors at Derry Crown Court on Friday during the sentencing hearing for three women who helped cover up the cold-blooded murder.

We can also reveal that the prosecutor will detail how Creswell, who took his own life rather than face justice for the murder of 21-year-old Katie last month, made offensive and inappropriate comments to the victim’s friends as she lay in her coffin.

And it turns out that the ice-cold killer took a shower to wash away evidence of his crime, but the coward deliberately made sure it was a cold shower – so the police wouldn’t find out.

But it is his “apology” on the coffin that will shock many who knew and loved Katie.

According to charging documents, Katie’s grieving mother, Noleen, told investigators that killer Creswell said “sorry” as he touched Katie’s arm just before the casket was closed.

Of course, Katie’s mother had no idea at the time that the twisted murderer was actually apologizing for her murder and rape, because it took the police seven months to bring charges against him.

Shockingly, Creswell’s “behavior during the wake was inappropriate” and the domineering, controlling rapist “remained vigilant near the body when friends were invited to spend time with Katie.”

“He commented that Katie looked good and pointed out that she had combed her hair for the first time in a long time. He was also heard making lewd comments to Katie’s friends at both the wake and the funeral,” the document compiled by prosecutor KC Samuel Magee said.

According to the prosecution’s lawyer, Creswell’s story of lies was corroborated by Hayley Robb, Jill Robinson and Rose de Montmorency-Wright, and this “had the effect of protecting Creswell from suspicion of involvement in her death.”

He will tell the court that the women were “involved in his conspiracy of silence” because they knew that Creswell “had given her (Katie) a beating.”

“Mr Creswell himself fabricated a lie by telling others that he had found Katie hanging from a strap in a stairwell and claimed that she had committed suicide,” Mr Magee will tell the court.

“These defendants did not know the truth about their deaths. However, they were complicit and co-conspirators in their silence regarding a number of critical facts and, in the case of Robb and Robinson, they took positive actions that resulted in those attempting to get to the bottom of what happened not uncovering the truth.”

Robinson (42), of Blackfort Road, Omagh, Co. Tyrone, admitted perverting the course of justice on 3 August 2020.

Robb (30), of Weavers Meadow, Banbridge, Co. Down, admitted two charges of perverting the course of justice and withholding information.

Rose De Montmorency-Wright (22), of Craigantlet Road, Newtownards, Co. Down, admitted withholding information between 9 October 2020 and 13 October 2021.

According to Mr Magee, all three women plead guilty because they “did not know or believe that Creswell had murdered or killed the deceased”, but knew that he had inflicted actual bodily harm on her, which they concealed from the police.

They also admit that they were “aware that the police would be investigating the circumstances of Katie’s death and that Creswell did not want the police to know about his attack on Katie”, even though they knew that he had, as he put it, “given her a beating”.

While De Montmorency-Wright did not disclose this information, Robb and Robinson washed Creswell’s bloodstained clothes, while Robb, who eventually admitted to police that she had had an affair with Creswell for “nine to ten years” before his indictment, confessed that she had wiped Katie’s blood off a stair banister.

She claimed she cleaned it two days after the incident, but police told her that officers who came to the house when Katie was taken to hospital found no blood, so she must have cleaned it when the fatally injured Katie was taken to Altnagelvin Hospital in Derry.

Robb also failed to tell officers that Creswell had “taken a cold shower” and changed clothes before going to the police. At the end of her interview, she told officers how Creswell had “controlled her,” physically assaulted her on several occasions, regularly checked her cellphone to see who she was communicating with, and that she was “afraid of what he would do to her” if she told police what had actually happened.

When Creswell, 36, searched Katie’s phone and discovered that she had started a relationship with another man, he flew into a fit of jealousy, raped and beat her with a rod or stiff strap, and strangled her until she was dead.

All of those involved in the case were heavily involved in the equestrian community and Mr Magee says Creswell was “a difficult character, particularly in his dealings with young women”.

“Others noticed that Katie was the worst affected by Mr. Creswell’s behavior, although his behavior, while controlling, was not, to their knowledge, characterized by physical violence,” the lawyer said, adding: “Others noticed that Katie appeared to be afraid of the defendant.”

Mr Magee describes Katie as a “fun, outgoing girl with no visible signs of concern” and describes how she went out for a drink with a friend on Saturday 1 August and “appeared to be in good spirits”.

She spent the night with her new boyfriend and he asked her if they could spend more time together, but “Katie told him that she would have to ask the defendant about that and told him not to say anything to the defendant himself.”

“From the early hours” of Sunday, August 2, Creswell “attempted to contact Katie… text messages confirm that he was angry with her and wanted to find out what she had done the night before.”

Katie was so worried that she deleted messages on her phone, but someone else confirmed to Creswell that her new boyfriend had been seen leaving her in the early hours of the morning.

Creswell took his children to his mother’s house, but on the way back to Gortnessy Meadows – where the attack had taken place – he called Hayley Robb and “seemed desperate to keep her on the phone” when he came in through the back door and “screamed out” that he had found Katie hanged.

“He used Miss Robb to provide himself with an alibi,” said Mr Magee, describing his screaming as “nothing more than feigned surprise.”

When they encountered police and an ambulance on the way to hospital, officers told Creswell to go straight there. Instead, however, he went back to Gortnessy Meadows, where Hayley Robb “watched and helped him as he took a cold shower. She told her he was going to take a cold shower so the police wouldn’t find out.”

She also agreed to take the clothes to be washed and wipe the blood off the banister.

When Katie was unconscious in the hospital, “Creswell’s behavior toward Katie was suspicious… he kissed her and told her he loved her as she lay in her hospital bed. He seemed to be the one most concerned about her condition.”

Sadly, Katie passed away on Saturday, August 9, 2020 at 3:17 am from cardiac arrest caused by the brain injury she sustained due to the disruption of her airway.

The prosecutor states that “the circumstances of her death were considered unusual by those who treated her” and that examinations by a pathologist and senior coroner found patterns of bruising and abrasions that strongly suggested “Katie had been attacked, including with repeated use of a weapon”.

Injuries to her hands were “consistent with defensive bruises” as she attempted to fend off her attacker, while “grip marks on the back of her right thigh” were consistent with a sexual assault.

Sperm that matched Creswell’s DNA was found on Katie’s clothing and on intimate swabs. The prosecution argues that he must have had sexual intercourse with her either the night before or on Monday morning and that “under the circumstances, it simply cannot have been a consensual act.”

Investigators examined the dimensions of the stairwell and concluded that “the suicide mechanism proposed by Creswell could not be correct… mechanically it made no sense.”

“The prosecution argued that Katie was never in the situation he claimed she was in. He had killed her before leaving the house, removed her from the house, and fabricated this false story to cover his tracks. However, the expansion of this fallacy was facilitated by the actions of these defendants.”