Phoenix Spencer-Horn sent her mom a text message at 9:37 p.m. on November 16, 2024. She said they were having dinner. That was the last real message from her daughter to Alison Spencer. The next two days were filled with things that should never happen in court and that no family should ever have to figure out.
27-year-old East Kilbride postal worker Ewan Methven killed his 21-year-old girlfriend in the apartment they shared on Glen Lee’s top floor. He used three different knives to stab her twenty times. The chest wound was what killed the person. Some were right up to her face. He then cut off her head and tried to take her limbs off. Two whole days went by before he called for help.
The fact that things got very cold afterward makes this case stand out from other violent crimes, and there is no easy way to say this. Methven drove her red Corsa around, looked at her phone, and searched the internet for pornography more than 170 times in the hours and days after Phoenix’s death. She also texted her mother as if Phoenix were still alive and well. A man who had killed his girlfriend and seen her die was going about his normal business. Getting drugs. Putting texts in. Keeping things normal.
That same evening, he had told Phoenix that her shifts as a waitress were making him lonely. She had said on social media that he was her soulmate. She said, “Life is so much more beautiful and full of color with you,” in a TikTok video she posted before she died. Two years ago, they met at a family get-together. From what everyone said, he had become someone her family could trust. It was that trust that made what he did even worse, the judge said later.
Methven finally called 911 on November 18. He told the operator that the murder had happened during a psychotic episode that he thought was caused by cocaine, alcohol, and steroids that had been spiked, according to him. When he was seen by a delivery driver at 8 PM on the night of the murder, he did not look drunk. Now I don’t know what to do with that claim. It looks like the court didn’t think it was either.
When setting the sentence for Methven at the High Court in Glasgow, Lord Matthews did not use nice words. He told Methven that he had “thieved her life in the cruelest way” and “betrayed the trust” of someone who loved him. He went on to say that Methven had denied Phoenix’s family even the most basic comfort of saying goodbye by cutting off her head after she had died. “Even the comfort of saying goodbye” is a phrase that stays with you.
Methven was given a life sentence, and he has to wait at least 23 years before he can be released. He told the judge in a letter that he was sorry and that he knew how much Phoenix loved him. Lord Matthews took note of the letter but told her straight out that it didn’t answer any of the questions that were bothering her family.
After Phoenix died, a page set up to raise money for her funeral raised thousands of pounds. A lot of it was given to Women’s Aid in Glasgow by her family. The charity made a public post about it and named Phoenix by name. They said that her name now stood for more than just loss; it stood for action and refusing to let violence go unanswered. There’s something very interesting about that. A young woman was killed violently, and her family couldn’t even say goodbye. Now, she is linked to the work of keeping others safe.
She was 21 years old. Coworkers said she was in a good mood at work the day she died. The day before, her mom had seen her.
