Jailed: Husband who stabbed and killed his wife in Stafford fled town before being found 120 miles away

The body of 28-year-old Milica Zilic was found with a stab wound to the chest at the Wolverhampton Road flat on November 27 last year. Her 34-year-old husband Dale Crook was charged in relation to his Serbian wife's death.

At a hearing at Stafford Crown Court on Friday, Crook, of Stafford, pleaded guilty to her murder.

The court heard that Miss Zilic’s body was found in their flat after police were called to the address at 1.20pm, but sadly she was pronounced dead by paramedics a short time later.

Two days earlier a family member had contacted Staffordshire Police with concerns about Crook’s welfare. He was subsequently found by police officers in Buckinghamshire and taken to hospital.

His wife's body was found back home in Stafford on November 27 and a knife was recovered from the scene, resulting in Crook being arrested on suspicion of her murder.

The court heard that a postmortem exam gave her cause of death as a stab wound to the chest.

Paying tribute to Miss Zilic, her mother Elijana said: “My soul aches and everything inside me is falling apart. Pain and sadness are destroying me from the inside.

“I still wonder why. I hug the cold stone with her name, I water the dry earth with tears and I repeat why? Why did he take her from me?

“I look at her picture in the silence of the apartment and it seems to me that she will speak, move her lips, smile at me, but only my breathing and sobs are heard.

“Everything hurts – remembering how she rushed to be born, her laughter when I kissed her little hands and feet, her first steps and first words, her squealing, crying and jumping in the yard, her first day at school. Her life that should have continued.

“The words that I didn’t tell her hurt. It hurts that I won’t be able to hug her anymore, to smell her scent. It hurts that she could still love, work, laugh, cry, rejoice, suffer. The emptiness hurts.

“Everything stopped for me. I lost a part of myself, I wake up in pain, I work out of habit, mechanically. I lie down in pain, but there is no sleep in my eyes. Everything suddenly became a straight line. It’s hard to live like this, but I go through life with my head held high. I smile and tell myself ‘I’m fine’, but I’m lying.”

Detective Inspector Ian Fitzgerald, of Staffordshire Police, said: “My thoughts and condolences are still very much with Milica’s family. I’d like to thank all the officers and staff, and criminal justice partners who helped with this investigation and have helped us to secure justice for Milica.”

For murder, Crook was jailed for 11 years and nine months after he admitted murder.