Cecilia Seddon

Cecilia Seddon was found dead at a flat.

Her cause of death was unascertained although it was determined that she had had high levels of cocaine and heroin in her body.

Cecilia Seddon was found dead at the property in Penare Road, Penzance on the evening of Thursday 19 April 2018. She had last been seen alive at the address on Friday 13 April 2018 where a birthday party was being held involving about seven people.

The police had been called to the property on Wednesday 18 April 2018 on an unrelated matter but they failed to notice that Cecilia Seddon's body was hidden there.

After her body was found on 19 April 2018 the police arrested three people on suspicion of murder. However, the charges were later dropped although two of the people arrested, both men aged 49 and 22 were charged with concealing Cecilia Seddon’s body after her death. The 49-year-old man was also convicted of administering a noxious substance, heroin and cocaine, to Cecilia Seddon and another man. The 49-year-old man was sentenced to 11 years in prison whilst the 22-year-old man was sentenced to three years and seven months.

Cecilia Seddon had been seeing the 49-year-old man who was described as a drug dealer and who dealt drugs from the address.

It was heard that later on the people at the party went off to another house to continue the party leaving Cecilia Seddon and the 49-year-old man alone at the property in Penare Road after which Cecilia Seddon died.

The 49-year-old man said that after he found that Cecilia Seddon was dead he panicked and put her inside a blue air bed that he had cut open and hid it inside a wooden double bed frame.

The two men later asked the other friend whose flat the party had gone to on 13 April if they could move in with him saying that their landlady was evicting them even though it was shown that they still had notice on their flat.

It was heard that when the friend went to the flat in Penare Road to pick some things up that he smelt a terrible smell which he said the 49-year-old man blamed first on rotting meat in the fridge, then on scallops and then on a dead animal.

It was heard that after the two men had moved into the other man's flat that the police went to the property in Penare Road on 18 April 2018 to execute a drug warrant but that they failed to find Cecilia Seddon's body. It was said that the 49-year-old man had at first been scared of what the police might find but that after they failed to find Cecilia Seddon that he had become cocky and told the man at the flat he was then staying at that Cecilia Seddon had died after he had given her a 'speedball' of heroin and cocaine and that he had then hidden her body in the bed. However, the man that he told was described as being horrified by the revelation and went to the police and the two men and a woman were arrested the following day after the police found Cecilia Seddon's body.

However, it was heard that the state of decomposition of Cecilia Seddon's body meant that her cause of death could not be determined and that they had further destroyed evidence meaning that the police could not determine what had happened.

It was heard that following Cecilia Seddon's death that the men had continued to party and had posed for photographs of themselves with weapons.

At the trial the prosecution said, 'If the 49-year-old man was innocent of this how could he possibly have stayed silent in [police] interviews? This is his ex-girlfriend surely there is some residual form of affection but, even if you didn't, you would have some sort of residual sense of humanity. If you've got nothing to do with it, there's a dead body. This isn't something to do with a bit of theft or a bit of robbery, somebody died. If you've got nothing to do with it and you have vital information then why would you not go to the police?'.

However, the 49-year-old man denied making the confession to the other man and claimed that the other person that had lived at the flat had put Cecilia Seddon's body in the bed. However, the prosecution described the 49-year-old man as a 'puppet master', stating that everyone around him was a puppet, adding that the other man would have no reason to take the 49-year-old man's girlfriend, Cecilia Seddon, and wrap her up and hide her beneath the bed all under his own initiative as the 49-year-old man had claimed.

The 49-year-old man further claimed that as no one had actually said they had seen him put Cecilia Seddon's body in the air bed that he hadn't done it.

A Detective Inspector later said, 'We may never know the exact circumstances as to why Cecilia died, and it is clear that those who could help explain how she died have done all they can to frustrate the enquiry and prevent the family having the answers they deserve'.

A Senior Crown Prosecutor for CPS South West said, 'The action taken by the two men in concealing Cecilia’s body perverted the course of justice by delaying the investigation into her death and potentially destroying vital evidence that might have explained how Cecilia died'.

Cecilia Seddon's sister later said, 'People knew my sister’s body was under that bed, and carried on with their lives. That’s what’s disgusting. The 49-year-old man stayed with the smell from Friday to the Monday. How disgusting is that?'.