‘The night mum was murdered will haunt me forever’

“I think it would be fair to describe it as probably the worst night of my life,” says Lucie Lambourne, as she remembers the night she arrived in her mother Rita Lambourne’s living room, to find her dead.

Ms Lambourne, 58, had been murdered by her cousin, Donald Excell, who had struck her multiple times with an axe at her home in Bexhill on 12 February, a court has found.

“What we were met with was pure carnage,” she said. “It will be a day that will haunt me for the rest of my life.”

Excell let himself into the house and struck Ms Lambourne “with chilling brutality and ruthless efficiency”, after the pair had “fallen out”, jurors at Hove Crown Court were told.

Det Ch Insp Alex Campbell, from Sussex Police, said there had been some “history” between Excell and his victim.

“There had been some previous incidents where he’d made comments and threats towards Rita, and he had a bit of a build up of hatred over the years towards her,” he said.

Excell, 49, walked from his home on Seabourne Road in Bexhill to murder Ms Lambourne at her home on Bayencourt South, a journey of half an hour on foot.

Security camera footage shows him carrying an axe in his right hand as he approaches her house to carry out his attack.

The court was told the entire incident was over in less than three minutes.

Sussex Police officers checked security footage from a wide area around Bexhill, as they pieced together Excell’s movements in the days and hours before Ms Lambourne was murdered.

Excell had denied murder and possession of a bladed article, but was convicted unanimously at Hove Crown Court on Friday.

He is due to be sentenced on 12 March.

In September a group of teenagers found a rucksack in a pond near the town. Their parents called the police.

“That was a huge breakthrough for us, because what we found in that rucksack was a fleece, a jumper and an axe sheath,” said Det Ch Insp Campbell.

The sheath contained some low-level DNA belonging to Excell and Ms Lambourne, he said.

“That in itself is a huge find because despite being in the water for seven or so months it’s managed to retain some DNA which then links [Excell] and Rita to those items found in the pond.”

Two weeks later police divers recovered the actual murder weapon.

Lucie Lambourne said Donald Excell, or Don as she called him, had been in and out of her family’s life.

“From time to time he would be very close with us all. Other times not so much.

“He has got a history of drug abuse,” she said.

“I would describe him as very domineering. Doesn’t like to be wrong, can often come across as quite sarcastic, a bit of a know-it-all really.”

She said behind Excell’s “jokey and fun” demeanour there was something “quite sinister” about him, saying he would boast to her and the family about having been violent to people in the past.

The court heard how Excell believed his victim was part of a paedophile ring, claims which Lucie described as “ridiculous”, and a “wild theory”.

She said: “Not once in the time he’s ever been around, near, with, or in this family unit has this ever, to my knowledge, been a thing.”

Ms Lambourne said she didn’t know why Excell wanted to murder her mother.

“It’s like trying to get into the mind of a psychopath.

“To know that somebody can be capable of that is terrifying. It really is,” she said.

“It just goes to show that you think you can know a person, and you really don’t know that person at all.”