Wealthy divorcee, 54, 'battered to death and then mutilated with a saw' by her secret lover after sex sessions in lay-bys and pub car parks

A wealthy businesswoman was murdered and her body mutilated by the penniless lover to whom she had given £70,000, a court has heard. During their 20-month affair, David Ryan left his wife at home as he sneaked off to have sex with Diana Lee in the back of her car in lay-bys and pub car parks and inside her isolated £500,000 mansion. After one rendezvous at her house, Ryan, 48, is alleged to have bludgeoned to death 54-year-old Miss Lee, who was less than 5ft tall and weighed less than 8 stone. The bankrupt former conservatory fitter, who was £90,000 in debt, denies murder and has said he was at home with his wife watching the Olympic Games at the time.

Chester Crown Court heard that after killing Miss Lee in August last year, Ryan mutilated her body with a saw to destroy DNA evidence, before dragging her body into the garage and setting it on fire. Ryan then tried to frame Miss Lee’s live-in lodger. He smeared her blood on the man’s antique German army SS dagger, slashed her dressing gown with it to make it appear it had been used to stab her to death and left some of her underwear in his bedroom. He also sent text messages from Miss Lee’s mobile phone to customers of her cattery business, which she ran from her house near the village of Cranage, near Holmes Chapel, Cheshire, to imply that she was still alive.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2336587/Wealthy-divorcee-battered-death-secret-lover-sex-sessions-lay-bys-pub-car-parks.html