Sussex builder Mark Brown guilty of double murder
He's been convicted of killing two women six months apart last year
Last updated 1st Dec 2022
An East Sussex builder who described himself as a "psychopath with a conscience" has been found guilty of murdering two women six months apart.
Mark Brown killed Leah Ware in May and Alexandra Morgan at a remote farm near St Leonards in November last year after meeting them through a sex work website, a jury at Hove Crown Court was told.
Brown put 34-year-old Ms Morgan head-first into a home-made incinerator before dumping her remains.
The body of 33-year-old Ms Ware has never been found, but the prosecution believe he used a similar method - as well as also killing her Pomeranian dog, Lady.
The jury of 10 men and two women took 10-and-a-half hours to convict Brown of both murder charges on Thursday (December 1st).
Brown met Ms Ware in 2018 when he hired her as an escort and they developed an "on again, off again" relationship.
He killed her on or around May 7 last year after tensions grew when she pressed him to leave his partner of 14 years, Lisa Clark, the court heard.
Brown hired Ms Morgan for sex around a dozen times before offering her an escorting job worth £100,000 in October 2021.
But when she visited Little Bridge Farm, the site he rented, the following month, he killed her and burned her body in an incinerator made from an oil drum.
He then dumped her remains in a skip at the building site where he worked in Sevenoaks, Kent.
Brown claimed she died in an accident at the farm after hitting her head when she slipped in his workshop and he burned her body "in a panic".
He told the jury he and Ms Ware broke up in early 2021 and, as far as he knows, she is still alive.
Libby Clark from the Crown Prosecution Service said:
"This is a tragic case where two women – Alex Morgan and Leah Ware – were murdered and treated with utter disregard and cruelty at the hands of Mark Brown.
"Brown has never accepted his actions; he claimed Alex’s death was an accident and created a web of lies to cover up the truth about Leah’s murder.
"We are pleased the jury saw through his lies and convicted him today, closing this complex and challenging case.
"Our thoughts remain with the families of Alex Morgan and Leah Ware. We hope, now Brown has been convicted, he will finally tell us what happened to Leah’s body, so her family can have closure."
Judge Justice Nicholas Hilliard adjourned sentencing until January 13th, saying the case is of the "utmost gravity" and thanking the jury for committing to the case for so long.