Phoenix Netts

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Phoenix Netts
Name	Phoenix Netts
Sex	Female
Age	28
Missing from	Birmingham, England
Disappeared	April 16, 2020
Discovered	May 12, 2020
Location	Gloucestershire, England
Identified	May 19, 2020
Span	1 week
Cause of death	Stabbing

Phoenix Netts was a young woman whose dismembered body was found in two suitcases in the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire, England in 2020. She was identified a week after her discovery.

Case

On May 12, 2020, a call came in to police about a car driving erratically on the A4136 road near Coleford in the Forest of Dean at around 10:30 pm. Police located the vehicle a short time later and spoke with a man and a woman, where police discovered two suitcases containing human remains, which appeared to have been charred. The car was then searched and both people were questioned and taken into custody. Days later, Gareeca Gordon from Birmingham was charged with murder, and Mahesh Sorathiya of Wolverhampton was charged with assisting an offender. The charges against Sorathiya were later dropped on November 10.

Identification

A week later, police announced that the woman's remains were identified as Phoenix Netts of Birmingham. Netts had been staying in a women's refuge shelter in Lozells, West Birmingham, where she met Gordon, who later became her housemate. It was discovered that Gordon had attempted to make sexual advances towards Netts on several occasions, which she constantly declined, and became aggressive toward Netts in response. Days before her murder, Netts talked about moving back in with her family in London.

On April 16, Gordon stabbed Netts four times in the torso, leaving her to die after Gordon refused to call for medical attention. Gordon then purchased a circular saw, which arrived the next day, and cut the body into six pieces before putting them into two suitcases. For the next few weeks, Gordon posed as Netts by using her cellphone to contact her friends and family, making them believe that Netts was fine. Gordon had made several trips to the Forest of Dean in an attempt to burn the remains within the woodlands before being captured on May 12.

On May 4, 2021, Gordon was found guilty of first-degree murder and was sentenced to at least 23-and-a-half years in prison.

Sources

• The Guardian
• BBC
• Phoenix Netts on Wikipedia
• Independent
• BBC