Double killer Shaine March branded an ‘evil coward’ as he gets 42 years

A convicted killer who stabbed his pregnant girlfriend to death after being released from prison for killing a teenager should never be released, a court heard.

Alana Odysseos, 32, staggered into the street in her dressing gown clutching her side after Shaine March, 47, knifed her 19 times on July 22 last year when she refused to have an abortion.

Neighbours in Walthamstow, east London heard the mother-of-two shouting: ‘I don’t want to kill my baby’ to March before he killed her.

March, who was out on licence for murder, later told police ‘I did it, I killed her ha ha ha. Send me to jail where I belong. ‘I regret nothing.’

March initially refused to attend his sentence hearing today telling prison officers ‘it’s only sentencing’ but was told he could be forced to attend if he did not come into a video link room.

He was 21 when he stabbed 17-year-old Andre Drummond to death in a crowded McDonald’s restaurant in Camberwell Green, southeast London.

March had left two voice messages on Andre’s mobile phone telling him: ‘I’m going to stab you.

‘I’m ready to die – let’s see if you are ready to die.’

He was convicted of murder by an Old Bailey jury in 2000 and sentenced to a minimum of 13 years.

Following his release from prison March was convicted of assaulting another pregnant partner in 2013 by stamping on her stomach and recalled to jail on life licence.

He was let out again in 2018.

He had admitted the manslaughter of Ms Odysseos but denied murder claiming his responsibility was diminished by psychiatric issues.

March had suffered a road traffic accident at the age of 17 when he suffered damage to his brain and cognitive function after being hospitalised in a coma for three to four days.

He claimed this led to his killing of Ms Odysseos despite it happening before his first murder.

March admitted murdering Ms Odyesseos during his trial after the defence’s expert witness said diminished responsibility was no longer available to March following a review of bodycam footage.

He was not the father of Ms Odyesseos’ two children.

March refused to come to court and prison staff then went to his cell to ask him to attend via a video link telling him he could be forced to attend court if he did not come willingly.

Prosecutor Louise Oakley said: ‘The defendant is required to be here for sentence. In my submission first consideration should be given to him being asked to attend via

and if he does not take up that offer this court does have the power to require him to attend using reasonable force.

‘It’s important to the family he is present during the sentencing hearing and hears the effect his actions have had on that family.’

The judge said he was concerned about disruptive behaviour from March if he was forced to attend which would lead to him being sent out of court anyway.

March then appeared via a video link from HMP Belmarsh wearing a black skull cap, glasses and a blue Islamic-style robe.

Ms Oakley told the court that March should be given a whole life order due to his previous conviction for murder.

Reading her victim impact statement to court, Ms Odysseos’ mother Karen Cronin said: ‘Alana, my beautiful, kind and loving daughter left this earth in the most callous and brutal way imaginable.

‘Alana’s death has left a huge empty void in our lives that will always remain.

‘Alana should still be here now, it wasn’t her time to go. I will never feel normal again.

‘There are so many things you hear about happening but when it’s your own it really hits hard and you can’t understand it and why it is allowed to happen.

‘The person that has done this to my daughter, who I don’t think deserves the respect of using his name, is evil and a coward.

‘Why couldn’t he have just walked away? Why did he have to resort to the level of violence he used?

‘The anger I feel doesn’t feel Christian so I no longer go to church. I have no forgiveness and will never have any forgiveness in my heart.

‘I want him to die in prison. He should never be let out- with no hope of doing this to anyone else else.

‘What did she do that was so bad, that ever warranted him getting to the point where the only option he felt was to kill her? She was looking after her two-year-old daughter.’

Ms Obysseos’ sister Lorraine Schofield sobbed as she read her statement in the witness box.

She said: ‘Having my younger sister cruelly taken from this world so brutally has completely shattered mine and my family’s lives.

‘As an older sister I always wanted to protect my siblings from harm. Knowing I couldn’t be there that night to protect her from a monster hurt me so much.

‘All she ever wanted was to be loved and be a mum. The baby she so desperately wanted to protect was cruelly taken away.’

She said March was an ‘evil, disgusting, coward’ who Alana had ‘trusted and loved’.

‘My mum has lost her beautiful daughter at the hands of this monster.

‘I will forever hold this anger in my heart while fiercely loving my family with everything I have left.’

In his statement Ms Odysseos’ father Alan Yates said: ‘Nothing can ever prepare you to hear those words that tell you your daughter is dead and then find out she’s been murdered by the person she once trusted, loved and wanted to start a family with.

‘She was young, looking forward to life with her daughter and pregnant with her third child.

‘She was a happy go lucky person always full of jokes.

‘Something changed when she met Shaine and we could begin to see a timid vulnerable person that was not our Alana.

‘Every day I wonder why he didn’t he walk away. My beautiful daughter was pregnant with his child at the time and this meant nothing to him.’

Ms Odysseos’ sister Jasmine Yates told March: ‘You promised through the messages you sent to me you would step up, that you loved Alana and you wanted a family.

‘Instead you became the very thing we were always scared of as children, the monster under the bed, the thing we had nightmares about

‘You hit her with that glass and she made excuses because she loved, trusted and hoped. I said that day “if he can glass you he can kill you”.

‘I’m haunted by those words and what happened after.’

The prosecutor earlier told the court: ‘At approximately 3am on 22 July 2024, members of the public who lived in Lynmouth Road in Walthamstow began to ring 999.

‘Alana Odysseos lived on Lynmouth Road. They had found her outside her address.

‘She was wearing her nightie and a dressing gown clutching her right side.

‘She was bleeding from multiple stab wounds to her body.

‘She was shouting “Shaine stabbed me, he stabbed me” and “Shaine stabbed me, he stabbed me. Help! Help!”.

‘She was pointing to a male close by who neighbours recognised as Shaine March.

‘It was clear that she required urgent medical assistance. The defendant walked away leaving them to commence that medical assistance.

‘The police and London Ambulance Service arrived very quickly after the calls were received.

‘But despite their very best efforts Alana Odysseos could not be saved. She died on the ground outside her home address.

‘This defendant had stabbed her to death.

‘By July 2024, she had been in a relationship with the defendant for approximately four months on the date of her death and had recently discovered she was pregnant.

‘She was someone who had experienced huge personal loss following the death of two partners and fathers of her children.

‘She had at times tried to find peace and comfort in the use of drugs and alcohol. She was vulnerable.

‘All she wanted by the time she died was to be loved. She desperately wanted to create a secure family environment for her two-year-old daughter.

‘About three months before her death, she had begun to make disclosures to friends and family about her relationship with the defendant.

‘She disclosed to a friend that she wasn’t allowed to talk to people, and that she had to answer her telephone at all times of the day, including video calls to prove where she was, and who she was with.

‘That began to argue constantly.

‘In other conversations she divulged that the defendant had destroyed and thrown out her daughter’s toys and they had argued about the fact she had find out she was pregnant.

‘She admitted that she had become scared of the defendant. There had plainly been physical violence.

‘You will hear reference to a glass being smashed in her face.

‘She complained that the defendant had interfered with and caused distance between her and her friends and family.

‘She told her sister that the defendant accused her of cheating on him, that he made her delete telephone numbers of any male contacts in her phone.

‘On one occasion, she had showed her sister voice notes on WhatsApp that the defendant had sent her, they were of him shouting and threatening to get her little girl taken away from her, calling her all sorts of derogatory names, and saying that their unborn child was not his and she should get an abortion.

‘As a result, her sister tried to persuade her to leave him. But Alana said she loved him. He promised Alana he would change.’

When March was arrested by armed police officers hours later he asked them why they did not kill him.

He said: ‘I did it, I killed her Alana Odysseos’ and ‘I killed her hahaha I killed her hahaha’.

As he was placed in a police van he said: ‘Send me to f—-ing jail where I belong, sickhead, hahaha, sickhead that’s me, fucking c—t, I’m that, I’m scum and I deserve to go to jail, I admit it, I killed her, I stabbed her to death.’

On his way to the police station he said: ‘I hope she never dies bro, I’ll tell you the reason why I don’t it yeah. I didn’t mean to hit her if she is dead. I hope she isn’t dead.

‘I hope the baby in her belly is still alive. But you know what yeah, but I did say to her, have the abortion because you got a three year old already and she can’t manage another one.

‘I said that I’ll be there as a father for her, and I did, I’ll look after her daughter and everything even when everyone said bad shit about her, I was the black man, I was the n——r pushing around a pram acting like her f—–ing father to her daughter.

‘She didn’t give a sh-t, she neglected her daughter, you understand? She argued with me, went out of her yard, pretended like she ain’t got the keys then she left her daughter, she abandoned her daughter. You understand?

‘Her name is Alana Odysseos, but her real last name is Yates. So, you can look her up her name.’

He said: ’Shaine Michael Evil March. Broadcast this to the f—-ing world, that Shaine f—-ing Michael March killed f—-ing Alyss, what’s her name, Alana yeah, Yates Odysseos’.

He added: ‘I regret nothing’.

At the police station he told police: ‘All this because you wouldn’t leave me alone, kept calling my phone to come to your house to fix your bed because the health visitor was coming. I wanted to leave but you hid my trainer so.

‘So, which one was it? Which stab killed her, cos I don’t remember stabbing her front. I do remember stabbing her back.’

He said: ‘You bring this to men in your life, if it wasn’t me, it would have just been someone else.’

March has convictions from 1995 for assault of a police officer, and assault causing actual bodily harm.

March of Rainsborough Avenue, Surrey Quays, south London, admitted murder.

Sandip Patel, KC, defending, said there was no evidence of premeditation, planning or sadism.

He said both of March’s killings were ‘spontaneous’ acts.

Mr Patel said from 2018 until last year March lived a ‘law abiding’ life in the community but his brain injury impairs his capacity for impulse control and emotional regulation.

He said March should not be given a whole life order.

‘This case does not fall into the extremely high category which includes Britain’s most notorious criminals including Peter Sutcliffe and Lucy Letby.

‘This was two incidents more than two decades apart.

‘He will spend the whole of his life burdened by the knowledge of what he has taken from another family.’

March donned a Covid-style face mask while his barrister spoke.

Mr Justice Murray jailed March for life with a minimum term of 42 years.

The judge told March: ‘Today we’ve heard the powerfully moving and indeed heartbreaking personal statements of Alana’s family.

‘She loved her family and daughter and at one time tragically for her, she loved you too.

‘She was a vulnerable young woman who had experienced serious personal losses.

‘She confined in her family and friends about your serious abusive and coercive behaviour towards her.

‘She was afraid of you but she loved you still and she hoped that you would change.

‘You picked up a knife, you stabbed her at least 19 times and slashed her at least five times.

‘Neighbours found Alana outside bleeding and repeatedly naming you as her attacker.

‘Despite the efforts of emergency services who arrived within minutes of the 999 calls Alana’s condition rapidly deteriorated.’

The judge said the case was not one which required a whole life order which he said was an ‘exceptional sentence’ reserved for the most serious of crimes.

‘There is a gap of over 24 years between the murders and before killing Alana you had lived for eight years in the community.’

He said he had also considered the fact that March pleaded guilty.

But he added: ‘The truth of the matter is given your age and the sentence I will impose it may be you never will be released from prison.’

The sentence means March cannot be released until he is 89.

Ms Odysseos’ family sobbed and hugged after the judge passed sentence.