WARNING DISTRESSING CONTENT: Hotel landlady Mandy Miles made a frantic 999 call describing how Matthew Williams attacked Cerys Yemm with a screwdriver at Sirhowy Arms Hotel in South Wales
Bite marks were found on Yemm’s body
A hotel owner uttered three chilling words after finding a man “eating” a woman’s face, describing the scenes as like “something from a horror film”.
A 999 recording was played on the second day of an inquest examining the deaths of Matthew Williams, 34, and Cerys Yemm, 22, at a “halfway house” in November 2014.
During the call, the hotel proprietor, Mandy Miles, explained how Williams “put a screwdriver through someone’s face”.
The traumatised landlady said three horrifying words to the call handler: “He’s eating her.” She continued on the call: “He’s shoving a screwdriver in her face. He’s actually chewing her face. I went into the room and he’s killed her. Oh my God. Is this real?”.
“There’s blood everywhere and it looks like something from a horror film.” Whilst speaking to police, Mandy could be heard instructing everyone “not to go in the room”. The inquest in Newport heard Mandy say in the 999 call: “He’s eating her”.
The jury was told the hotel owner unlocked the door after hearing screams to reveal a horrifying and bloody scene. She saw shop worker Cerys Yemm, 22, having her face cut open with a screwdriver before being chewed by her killer inside the room.
The 999 recording presented to the inquest jury revealed how the 50 year-old telephoned police after opening the door of room seven.
She said: “He’s shoving a screwdriver in her face. He’s actually chewing her face. He’s been locked in room seven. I don’t know who he’s hurting.
“There’s a lad in the room. He’s actually eating her. It’s awful. His name is Matthew Williams and he’s in Room 7.”
Yemm and Williams had met shortly before on a night out in nearby town Blackwood, and then met up again on the evening of November 5.
Williams lured unsuspecting Cerys back to his room at the Sirhowy Arms Hotel where he had been placed by the local authority following his prison release. He was a prolific offender with 26 convictions for 78 offences, 41 stints in juvenile custody and 14 adult jail terms.
At 11.30pm Yemm left with Williams to go to the halfway house, arriving around midnight.
But Yemm told her mum, Paula, that she would be home by 11.30pm. When she hadn’t returned by that time, Paula asked her daughter where she was at around 12.15am. Yemm said she was “close by, in the lanes”. The mother and daughter never spoke again.
Mandy informed the inquest she thought Williams was eating Cerys despite the fact that “science has proved he wasn’t”.
She said: “It looked to me as if he was eating her. And that’s what it still looks.
“I shouted to him: ‘Matthew do you know what you are doing? Do you know what you are doing? Are you eating her?’.
“I can’t remember but it’s all jumbled. Science has proved that he wasn’t but that’s what it looked like. That’s no girl. There’s just blood dripping from her. It was horrific.”
The 999 recording was presented to the jury following CCTV footage of recently-released prisoner Williams entering the “halfway house” Sirhowy Arms Hotel at Argoed, near Caerphilly, South Wales.
It also showed Mandy’s son Christian arriving with other visitors outside the room. She told Christian: “You are not going in there.”
She instructs her son to move away from the door, having informed the operator that she saw Williams eating the girl.
The operator assures her that police will arrive immediately. The 999 operator informed officers at just after 1am that there’s been a reported murder at the Sirhowy Arms Hotel where a man has attacked another person with a screwdriver and ate the person’s face.
The 999 operator said: “This is genuine.” The operator requests that all guests inside the hotel evacuate as multiple police officers will be arriving. One of the hotel guests has been sick.
The hearing was told officers arrived at the hotel 14 minutes after the 999 call to arrest Williams.
Williams, 34, was released from prison just two weeks before he “horrifically” killed Yemm. He then died himself after being tasered by police.
He was tasered four times in seven minutes by police, who recalled him looking “possessed” throughout the ordeal.
A toxicology report found Williams had 1.7 milligrams per litre of amphetamine in his blood. When he was tasered he went into cardiac arrest and later died after losing consciousness as he was carried to the ambulance.
The inquest heard that he had bitten Yemm around four times and Mandy, then told the hearing: “He was red and black. He didn’t have a clue what he was doing.”
Yemm was discovered covered in blood lying underneath Williams in his hostel room – after he binged on drink and drugs in the days before.
An inquest into both their deaths heard paranoid schizophrenic Williams was released from custody without any medication or supervision despite being sectioned twice and complaining of hearing voices in his head.
His mother Sally Ann Williams told the inquest her son had previously been diagnosed with drug-induced schizophrenia after claiming he was a tree and saying his food was poisoned.
She said he had been placed in foster care as a teenager after being caught stealing to buy drugs, and his drug addiction was “set in” after he returned from a young offenders institute. His mental health “deteriorated” after he split up from the mother of his son about three years before he killed Yemm.
Williams said: “At some point he was sectioned once or twice but I don’t know the details.”
Williams served a two-and-a-half-year prison sentence where he received medication, but was given “no support” upon his release on 23 October 2014.
His mother said: “There was no mental health support whatsoever.
“He told me he’d been released without any medication. He’d been released without license and had no probation restrictions.”
She mentioned her son complained “the voices were back” in the days leading up to the murder. “He told me his head wasn’t right,” she said.
She delivered food to his hostel just hours before he murdered Yemm, where he “seemed fine” and later received a text from him saying he’d made “a lovely dinner” with the food she’d provided.
That night, he brutally killed Yemm in his room, and died in the early hours of the following morning after being tasered by police responding to the gruesome scene.
“I returned the next day and that’s when I found out what had happened,” she said.
His best friend, Rhodri Moore, told the inquest Williams seemed fine after his release from prison, but deteriorated “after the first couple days.”
He said: “He was taking drugs on a daily basis.
“He said when he looked at a can of coke he could see faces. He wasn’t very well. He was seeing things, hallucinating. He was annoyed and on edge. Depressed.
“He couldn’t get any medication. His mother was trying very hard to get someone to see him. He was willing to be helped. He wanted to be helped.”
He revealed Williams consumed large quantities of amphetamines and cannabis following his release, and Williams had been smoking cannabis the day before he murdered Yemm.
Mandy informed the inquest: “He was looking wired. He looked to me like he hadn’t been asleep.”
It was also found that Williams had refused to engage with the probation service in the two weeks between his release from prison. But because he had completed his 27-month sentence, probation officers had no power to keep in touch with him.
