A 70-year-old woman has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 22 years for the murder of her sister, whom she stabbed repeatedly in the neck at her Camden flat before stealing her Rolex watch and leaving her body undiscovered for more than three days.
Nancy Pexton was sentenced at the Old Bailey this week after being found guilty of killing Jennifer Abbott on 10 June 2025. Judge Anuja Dhir KC told Pexton she was “sure” she had subjected her sister to “repeated stabbing and slashing” concentrated on her neck, before disposing of the murder weapon and walking away with Abbott’s Rolex.
The judge’s words in court were unflinching in their description of what Jennifer Abbott endured. “You slit her throat. You stabbed deeply into her lower left side of her neck, puncturing her lung. This was a sustained and excessively violent assault, with a knife, on a vulnerable woman, in her own home. Your sister must have experienced fear and physical suffering before she died.”
Pexton left her sister in the flat either dead or dying. Abbott’s body was not found for over 72 hours.
Sentencing Pexton to life imprisonment, Judge Dhir said it was “entirely possible” she would never be released, noting that the 22-year minimum term represented only the earliest point at which the Parole Board could consider her case. If she is ever released, Pexton will remain on licence for the rest of her life.
The case is a disturbing reminder that domestic homicide can take place between siblings as well as partners, and that the theft of a luxury item in the immediate aftermath of a killing speaks to a level of callousness that courts treat with the utmost gravity.
