Man accused of murdering Chesterfield pensioner asked former soldier 'how did it feel to kill somebody'

On the fifth day in the trial of Daniel Walsh, former soldier Scott Moony described being out in Chesterfield with a friend on June 21 last year when they were approached by Walsh who asked to join them.

Walsh told them he had been out with friends who had now gone home and he wanted to stay out drinking, Mr Moony said.

He later offered them cocaine and tried to persuade them to entice a female for group sex, which Mr Moony and his friend Andrew Marshall declined, he said giving evidence at Derby Crown Court on Friday, March 13.

Later in the evening Walsh, 30, of Marsden Street, Chesterfield, discovered Mr Moony had been in the Army, serving in Afghanistan and asked him about killing, he told the court.

He said: “I was asked if I had ever killed anybody and if I had what it had felt like.I told him to shut up and that it was a stupid question - it’s not the sort of thing I like to talk about but he kept asking me the same questions over and over.

“In the end I got quite fed up with it and got quite angry. He asked me if I’d ever seen a dead body.”

The court also heard from neighbours of Mr Snell who took the decision to report him as a missing person to the police.

David King, who was Mr Snell’s next-door neighbour at the time he went missing, told the court that he had knocked on Mr Snell’s door on June 22 to tell him he was going on holiday, but Walsh had opened the door and said he was out shopping.

When he returned from his trip, Mr King again knocked on Mr Snell’s door and Walsh this time said he was in hospital.

But when Mr King contacted hospitals in Chesterfield and Sheffield, he was told that Mr Snell had not been admitted since 2017.

Neighbour Zoe Holmes described a voice shouting “Get out, get out, get out,” from either inside Mr Snell’s house or at the front of the property at about 11pm on June 19, and had not seen or heard from Mr Snell again after that point.

Eventually, on June 30, Mr Kink and Miss Holmes contacted Derbyshire Police and reported the 71-year-old missing.

Previously, the court was told that Walsh had murdered Mr Snell and cut his body into 10 pieces, disposing much of it in a badger sett and nearby woodland, as well as in a communal bin at the flats where his brother lives.

He also tried to get an emergency passport, went on lavish gambling and spending sprees, and also bought sawys, heavy-duty bags, a bin and an incinerator from DIY stores around Chesterfield.

Walsh denies murder and the trial continues.