Neil Revill, who is originally from Consett, escaped the death penalty but was told he would die in prison after being sentenced yesterday.

A MURDERER has been told he will spend the rest of his life behind bars for stabbing a woman to death and decapitating her boyfriend in Los Angeles 10 years ago.

Neil Revill, who is originally from Consett, escaped the death penalty but was told he would die in prison after being sentenced yesterday.

The 38-year-old was last month found guilty of one count of first-degree murder and one of second-degree murder following the bloody knife slayings at an LA flat in 2001.

He was convicted of killing his friend Arthur Davodian, before stabbing Kimberley Crayton, the niece of singer Al Jarreau, to death, in the drug-fuelled attack.

Revill was also found guilty of two charges of transporting controlled substances. A prison informant gave evidence against Revill during a six-week trial, saying he had confessed while in jail.

Speaking after the sentencing, the area’s Deputy District Attorney Phillip Stirling said: “I am not a bloodthirsty individual who thinks the death sentence is appropriate in every case.


“Whether this was an appropriate case for the death penalty or not is a close call. That being said, life in prison with no possibility of parole is the next most harsh sentence.

“I don’t believe Neil Revill is the devil, however, what he did on that day was as bad as you could do. That’s pretty hardcore stuff and we are satisfied with what happened.”

The killings took place on October 11, 2001, and Revill has spent the past nine years in prison awaiting sentence.

Mr Davodian, 22, was stabbed 17 times before his head was severed from his body. Miss Crayton, 20, had locked herself in a bedroom while her lover was murdered, but Revill smashed the door down.

She was stabbed 19 times but her 14-month-old baby survived. A prison cell informant told the court that Revill confessed to having been in the midst of a drug-fuelled paranoid episode when he launched the attack.

Revill suspected Mr Davodian, a drug dealer, was trying to keep him in the property while Israeli-organised gangsters were coming to kill him. DNA linked him to the murders.

Today the convicted murderer was awaiting transportation to a state prison in California. His parents, Brenda and Graham, who now live in Perth, Australia, were both in court to hear his fate.

Mr Stirling said: “For a double murderer with a beheading and a life imprisonment with no possibility of parole sentence, he will start out as a very high classification prisoner.”

Revill was born in County Durham, but moved to Germany with his father when he was still young. He returned to the North East and lived with his grandfather in Stanley, before moving to Sunderland and then to the USA.