UK man jailed for 25 years for killing 2 former partners

LONDON – A British man has been sentenced to at least 25 years in prison for killing two former girlfriends five years apart, deaths police initially ruled unsuspicious.

A judge in southern England sentenced 52-year-old Robert Trigg on Thursday for the 2006 manslaughter of Caroline Devlin and the 2011 murder of Susan Nicholson.

Police initially recorded Devlin’s death as being caused by an aneurysm and said Nicholson’s was accidental. Trigg said he inadvertently rolled onto her while the couple slept on a sofa.

Both deaths were re-examined after a campaign by Nicholson’s family. A pathologist ruled that Devlin was killed by a blow to the head and Nicholson died of suffocation.

Nicholson’s father, Peter Skelton, said the original police investigation had been “a disgrace.”

The Sussex Police force has apologized.