Man admits murder of Canadian teenager

A man has admitted the murder of a Canadian teenager he had met on an online dating app.

Jack Sepple, 23, pleaded guilty at Chelmsford Crown Court to the murder of 19-year-old Ashley Wadsworth.

Ms Wadsworth was pronounced dead at an address in Tennyson Road, Chelmsford, Essex, on February 1.

An inquest hearing was told that she died of “stab wounds to the chest”.

Ms Wadsworth had met her boyfriend, Sepple, through an online dating app and travelled to the UK late last year.

In a brief hearing at Chelmsford Crown Court on Wednesday, Sepple’s barrister said a psychiatrist had indicated that the defendant was fit to plead.

Christopher Paxton QC, for Sepple, said that the “issue of fitness is now resolved” and requested that the defendant be asked to enter a plea.

The court clerk read the single charge of murder and Sepple, standing in the secure dock in a long white sleeved top and with tattoos on his face and hand, replied: “I’m guilty.”

Ms Wadsworth, originally from Vernon, British Columbia, moved to Chelmsford in November 2021, she wrote on Facebook.

Earlier this year she posted photos online of her “amazing trip to London”, where she had been sightseeing.

Judge Christopher Morgan told Sepple: “By your plea of guilty to murder there’s only one sentence that can be passed and that’s a life sentence.”

He remanded the defendant in custody until a date to be fixed administratively, when he will be sentenced.