In the hushed and solemn atmosphere of Birmingham Crown Court, the word that would forever define the actions of Louise Porton was delivered with chilling precision: “evil and calculated.” The 23-year-old mother from Rugby, Warwickshire, was convicted of the murders of her two daughters, three-year-old Lexi Draper and 11-month-old Scarlett Vaughan, bringing to a close a case that left even hardened detectives and medical professionals grappling with a darkness they had rarely encountered.
The devastating truth that emerged over the course of a five-week trial painted a portrait of a woman so consumed by her own selfish desires that she systematically extinguished the lives of the vulnerable children who depended on her for their very survival. Between January 4 and February 1, 2018, in a period of less than one month, Louise Porton ended the lives of both her children, relying on suffocation and airway obstruction to silence them forever, all because they were perceived as obstacles in her pursuit of a life that she had chosen for herself, prioritizing on call relationships and financial gain over the care of her own flesh and blood.
Her journey into the abyss began in the small town of Rugby, where the young mother had relocated from Willenhall. She was the biological mother of Lexi, from a previous relationship with Chris Draper, but the couple’s relationship had deteriorated. Louise swiftly established a new relationship and moved away, cruelly severing any contact with her daughter’s father, who never even met a second child, Scarlett, who was not fathered by him according to Porton’s reckless lie to her new partner.
That relationship too, would collapse, leaving a young, single mother, but surround herself with help, as she lived in a flat in the Beechwood Court area, working part-time as a model, and maintaining a robust presence on various social media platforms under the name “Lollipop,” where she described herself as easy-going and open to all photo shoots, including racy and glamorous work, and was open to payment or barter.
Alongside this, she was engaging in 𝒔𝒆𝒙 with men for profit, with a 𝓈𝒽𝓸𝒸𝓀𝒾𝓃𝑔 indifference to her children’s welfare. She had told one man they could have 𝒔𝒆𝒙 in the room she shared with her infant daughter, Scarlett, on condition they were quiet, and on another occasion, while her daughters slept without supervision, she left the apartments to have 𝒔𝒆𝒙 with a man in his car. Her life was one of total moral corruption, where children were not just an inconvenience but an obstacle to be removed, and the slightest maternal instinct had been replaced by a callous narcissism.
The initial public tragedy began to unfold on January 2, 2018, when Lexi was admitted to the hospital with breathing difficulties. It was diagnosed as a chest infection, and she was discharged. By January 4, though, the condition of the little girl had deteriorated dramatically.
Paramedics arrived at the location to find Lexi on her back, struggling to breathe; she was saved by the skill of the medical team who performed resuscitation. It was during this time that Lexy’s health struggles began, and it was these stays in the hospital that gave her mother the opportunity to further her own agenda, send a sexual attacker pictures of herself and message a security guard she had meet to the emergency department, 80 messages in total, all while her child was fighting for her life. But perhaps the most damning detail was the first who was to note this was that while Porton seemed upset, she wasn’t as in distress as a parent should be when their child was that ill.
The reprieve was short-lived. On January 15, 2018, the phone call was made to the ambulance service. After just 9 minutes, paramedics arrived at her home.
It was cold and the medical team had been called to go to the en suite. they found Lexi on the floor, but her jaw was stiff and spots appear on her skin, a condition called rigor mortis. The determination was that Lexi had been dead for a while.
The time of death was recorded at 12:50 am. Notably, Porton was reported to have cried for less than a minute from the bedroom as they attempted to not revive her, and in the moments after, she sat in the rear with her dead child and an officer, she appeared to be holding a glass of red wine, a detail that struck the paramedics as more than unusual. One of the first responders stated they suspected she was pleased to see him.
The immediate aftermath would lay bare the true nature of her character. Just 24 hours after Lexi’s death, Porton was on the dating apps “MeetMe” and “Badoo,” accepting 41 friend requests and arranging a date for that very evening. In one message, she coldly told a man, “my little girl died yesterday”.
When he expressed his condolences, she replied simply, “It’s ok”. She was caught on CCTV heading to the funeral dir and heard laughing and joking over WiseTime with a man, and in relation to her daughter’s death, she was overheard making the sickening statement, “I’ve got one less to worry about.” The natural reason the death could not be determined, and the post-mortem was still incomplete.
A mere two weeks after the first funeral and in a horrifying turn of events, on February 1, 2018, the second emergency call was made. First, Porton had messaged a man named Patrick via WhatsApp, asking for money for fuel to take Scarlett to the hospital, stating, “I’m not going to lose another child, I’m not going to lose another child.” She claims she called the non-emergency number because the child was not breathing, but this popped when the paramedic arrived at a retail park to find the infant’s body.
This was determined that the child was dead and had been for a considerable time and was stiff. It was, in the jurisdiction, a code Red Ice cold. On arrival, their supervisor on the scene, described the mother as calm and without emotion, and her biggest reaction was a spontaneous yawn when they questioned her concerning her dead daughter’s belongings.
When her mother was informed her second child has passed away, she could not provide any real reason and was observed to make another call, with her call was inevitably made, was to arrange her romantic meet.
The investigation into two sudden deaths, one after the other, triggered an acceleration and it provides. The evidence quickly turned from suspicion to a terrifying reality. Louise Porton was arrested on March 20, 2018.
She admitted she had no idea how the girls died from a time, until the post-mortem results revealed that Lexi and Scarlett had died of airway obstruction. Not only that, but both also had prior injuries indicating that they may have been subject to physical 𝓪𝓫𝓾𝓼𝓮. Both had fatal and non-fatal episodes of suffocation.
The medical examiner found bleeding within the neck tissues, a sign of physical stress on the child.
Yet Porton maintained her innocence and was release on bail. Police evidence demonstrated that she grew cold. A google search of her mobile device revealed a corrosive habit.
Inquiries during the days between the deaths included queries such as “Can suffocation occur when someone’s nose is blocked and their mouth with tape?” “How long can a body be revived after a drowning?” And “Why did my 3-year-old stop breathing?”
Hours before she contacted services over Scarlett, she had searched a browser to check “How long does it take for a body to become cold?” The investigators also found that just prior to the girls’ last hospital visits, she was sending a sexually explicit, her, relationship from a spontaneous meeting, and she used her child’s medical condition to create a story, leading to a series of vile messages to men.
The investigation also uncovered evidence of total neglect. The prior property owner in Willenhall told police that Porton rarely cared for her children and would not have them around as much as possible, she cursed at them and appeared annoyed. Once, when Lexi had a tantrum, their mother gave her a rough yank by one arm and ordered her off the floor.
The police realized that the “flu” story and the earlier infection were in fact a form of attack, a premeditated attempt to block her airway. The fact that her children “the obstruction” was not from an illness, but from being intentionally suffocated.
The crown court jury was presented with evidence that while her daughter Lexi was fighting for her life at the hospital, Porton was sending sexually explicit photos of herself in the restroom and negotiating a paid shoot. She told a man that for ₤ 300, he could “do anything”. She was also exchanging 80 WhatsApp messages with a security guard she had just met from work, degree of her child’s dying by a lengthy resuscitation.
The messages showed a fundamentally hedonistic detachment from the actuality of the situation. In a message 發送 in the opening of the winter, her mother said her 3 year old had with a “fatal flue”, which was factually incorrect, and that was a waste.
Security camera footage of the hotel where she and Scarlett lived revealed that the child was alive and well, but the exact time of death began to clear. On her days, she was alive, and on the date in question, she was apparently alive when she kills at the hotel, she placed Scarlett’s body in the car seat and then drove to a petrol station, all the while her corpse in the backseat, before pulling into a retail park and making the non-emergent call. She had claimed the child was with having flu but could not tell, but the child had been dead for at least several hours due to the process of time.
After being arrested and in a prepared statement from her, she continued her mendacious defense: “My children were not in inconvenience to me, and I adjusted my life around them. I do not know how my daughters died. That is the truth.
It is also true that life as a single mom was hard financially، but any suggestion I used my daughter’s poor health or death to make money for my own benefit is inaccurate and completely wrong.”
This was contradicted. Her social media history revealed that she sold used clothes of her dead daughters for £20 on Facebook. She sought to connect with other men while messaging dating apps.
When the case finally went to trial in July 2019, she she insisted she had loved her daughters. The loss of her second child, she convinced that her parents separated, admitted that she found it hard to form emotional bonds and struggle to show feelings, but there was no psychological evidence to defend her actions. The prosecutor argued that while she had a genuine need for time to herself now and again, it is “a genuine, positive, and we know, drunkly arise,” she was missing them, “In the context of two unexplained deaths which are consistent with the deliberate obstruction of the windpipe, it’s not hard not to draw the conclusion that the two girls were sometimes an impediment to what she wanted to do, when he wanted to do it, and with whom he wanted to do it.”
The conclusion, was that someone deliberately interfered in their breathing. Both and this person could only be the suspect.
The jury agreed. After just five hours of deliberation, they returned a unanimous guilty verdict. In the sentencing remarks, Judge Yip described Mrs.
the defendant as “evil and calculated”. Delivering an unprecedented term of life imprisonment with a minimum of 32 years, the Judge Yip said: “You evaded into the spirit of your children each of your children, and they don’t you wait to call medical services until you knew it was dead. You called the ambulance only when you know no one could help.
In each case, I’m quite sure that you intended to 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁. Why you will ever be known. Those who loved their kids and have been left with a baffling question of how and why you could do something evil.”
For Chris Draper, the father of both girls, the wound was beyond physical and comprehension. He was in the murder of his home in Willenhall. In a statement, he told a court he had not seen her for a period of time and he was upon to feel to be removed.
He said he had tried to raise concerns with social services about their welfare, but they were ignored. In a heartbreaking eulogy, he said: “You were their mother, the person to care, protect and love them. They were just adding validity to you.
How did you act like that? I just think about them day and night and I can’t understand why you would take them from this world just so you could have causal encounters. I hate you.
Get the speech. They will never get to be the age to go to school, never get to learn to ride a bike, never get to go on their first date, and never get to get married and have kids. My one comfort is that must be together.”
The aftermath of the case has been a rippling sense of tragedy. In September 2019, friends and family held a funeral. The horses with white feathers in their hair drew the small white coffins, whose names were “Lexi and Scarlett” in pink writers.
Both were pray entertainment by their father. It was on the same date. Six months later, in February 2020, the family sorrow reached another turn.
Sharon, the grandmother of the two girls, died suicide. In the aftermath of the conviction, she had spoken of her horror, stating that she had become “a monster” and she feels she would no longer consider her daughter to be the same person. She said about society, “They have a bloody hand.
They could have done more. Porton has not been interested in the death of Lexi. She was not interested at all.
There must be an inquiry as to why they did not do more.”
Others have raised that West Midlands Police were called and that the body of the 48-year woman found. The death, they said, was not as suspected. Sharon had become post on social media in the weeks prior, alleging that her daughter had hit her as she was defending Porton, but claims she had lied and thanked her for the punch.
Louise Porton was sent to Foston Hall, where it has been reported she is subjected to constant 𝓪𝓫𝓾𝓼𝓮 and being spat on by other prisoners. The investigation had been lead in the Warwickshire Police. In a final official case, the commanding detective.
Detective Sergeant Peter Hill from Warwickshire Police said he could never comprehend how any woman could 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁 her children. “she lied through and through”, he said, “She lied to friends, family, and to professionals to cover her tracks.” He told the press that there was not a state of the investigation where she showed a real sign of emotion.
He thanked the jury for their “Vigorous” reviewing the “harrowing details” of the crime before stating he that “It is clear, as well as committing the murders of her children, she attempted to commit the murder of her parent.”
As the case escalated, the judge summed up the prosecution’s verdict by addressing the defense and stating: “The suggestion that the children was an obstacle to your lifestyle might make out juicy headlines but doesn’t really reflect the evidence in the trial. Your girls did not stop you doing things you wanted to do. The only reason for their death is that you, the mother, chose to end her life.”
In a deep statement, the judge read in old her, “You must have been the very own love of children of the full cognitive abilities of the we do not fully see but he had no alternative. The judge also rejected her excuse and attempted on the fact that she was 38 weeks maternity leave; they didn’t allow it.”
