Neighbours describe stabbing death

Police cars outside the address on Sherwood Avenue in St Albans, where a man died and a woman was seriously injured in a stabbing

A woman collapsed outside her home “covered in blood” after a knife fight in which her neighbour was killed, witnesses said.

Neighbours told how they heard a “furious yell” before finding the 53-year-old, named locally as Sandra Crawford, outside her property in Sherwood Avenue, St Albans, Herts.

An 18-year-old man – identified by neighbours as her son James Killen – was arrested on suspicion of murder after the 46-year-old man died at the scene.

Hertfordshire Police said the detained man was later released on bail until a date in June.

Detectives said they had received no evidence of any ongoing dispute between neighbours before the double stabbing on Friday.

Livia Frakas, a 27-year-old au pair from Slovakia, was taking her employer’s two young children to school as the drama unfolded in front of her.

She said: “I got down to the end of the street when I heard a furious yell from inside the house. It was a man’s voice.

“And then I saw the woman laying on the grass injured – she was covered in blood.

“She was in a night dress and pyjamas, blood was everywhere, all over her body and her face as well.”

The au pair said a younger man in uniform, who she believed was the injured woman’s son, came out of the house and “cried for help”.

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