A self-confessed “monster” who strangled a Hackney teacher he met online to death and then had sex with her body was today jailed for 26 years.
Carl Langdell, 26, murdered history teacher Katie Locke, 23, in a hotel room just two weeks after they first met on internet dating site Plenty of Fish.
He then took pictures of her on his iPhone, which he viewed later before deleting.
He then wrapped her body up in bed sheets and a duvet and dragged it outside before dumping it in some bushes.
Langdell, who admitted murder, was sentenced by judge Andrew Bright at St Albans Crown court.
The judge told him: “I am firmly of the view that you pose a very great danger to women and young girls with whom you come into contact with in the future and I note that you have described yourself to others as a monster and a psychopath because of what you did to Katie Locke.
“Once you have served the minimum term I have set, it will be for others to decide when, if ever, it will be safe for you to be released.”
He added: “Katie was a thoroughly decent and innocent young woman who had done you no harm at all.”
The couple had been out for drinks in London on December 23 last year and later called for a taxi to take them to the Theobolds Park Hotel in Waltham Cross in Herts.
The court heard that Langdell, of Waltham Cross, told Ms Locke he was a lawyer who owned a law firm.
This was untrue and he in fact had been suffering mental health issues for the previous two years and had been admitted to psychiatric hospitals.
Ms Locke, from Buckhurst Hill, Essex, taught history and politics at Cardinal Pole School in Hackney.
Months before the murder, Langdell avoided going to prison after making threats to kill a community nurse.
He received a suspended sentence, having threatened the woman in what he claimed was an attempt to shock mental health officials to get their attention.
