A FAMILY is struggling to come to terms with two deaths with horrifying similarities two decades apart.

This month, Karen Leonard was found stabbed and strangled in a flat in Middlesbrough.

And it has emerged that 19 years ago, her mother was discovered savagely attacked with almost identical injuries in her home in Darlington, inflicted by her lover, David Hauxwell.

A family friend said Ms Leonard, a 40-year-old single mother, had struggled to come to terms with her mother’s murder and had slipped into alcoholism.

The friend said that Glen Storey, Carol’s former husband and Karen’s father, was inconsolable after the family’s latest tragedy.

Ms Leonard, who was starting to turn her life around, was only living in Middlesbrough after she was sent on an alcoholic rehabilitation programme.

The friend said: “She would never have been in the town to meet her killer if she had stayed in Darlington.

“The trouble with drink is that you meet people who are alcoholics and adopt their lifestyle. You and I go to work, but for Karen there was nothing to do – just drinking in the company of drinkers.

“She had finally admitted she was an alcoholic and had conquered it. She knew she could not have even one drink.

“When she was not drinking, she was such a lovely girl.

“As a child, she was really bonny with blonde curls and bright blue eyes.

“She was really close to her dad and he is devastated at losing her. It is so tragic and unbelievable. Her dad is left in bits coping with a second tragedy in the family.

“You would not want anything like this to happen to anyone. She had struggled so hard to get through her mum’s death, only for the same thing to happen to her.”

A post-mortem examination revealed that the 40-yearold, of Elmhurst Gardens, in Hemlington, Middlesbrough, died of asphyxiation by strangulation.

She also suffered head injuries and stab wounds.

Police launched an investigation after they were called to flats in Clairville Road, near Albert Park, just after 5pm on Monday, April 6.

Michael Heighton, of Clairville Road, Middlesbrough, who has not entered a plea, has been charged with murder.

He is in custody and will appear at Teesside Crown Court on June 19.

Attacker wrote to victim following murder

CAROL STOREY was murdered in August 1990 by her lover, David Hauxwell, in the home they shared in Eston Moor Crescent, Darlington.

The 42-year-old was strangled by her attacker using his hands and electrical cable before she was stabbed twice in the neck.

Hauxwell, then 37, had a history of brutal violence and had served at least four jail sentences before he cut short her life.

In 1991, Teesside Crown Court was told that Hauxwell had been on bail on a charge of inflicting grievous bodily harm on Mrs Storey a fortnight before her death.

The court was told that in September 1986 at Lancaster Crown Court, Hauxwell was sentenced to five years in jail for wounding with intent after he repeatedly stabbed his then common-law wife about her arms and body with a 4in penknife blade.

Ten years earlier, Hauxwell had been sentenced to 18 months in jail at Durham Crown Court for unlawful and malicious wounding. He had also served two short jail terms for assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

Hauxwell had lived with Mrs Storey for several months before her death.

In a bizarre twist, it emerged in court that Hauxwell wrote a letter to Mrs Storey after he murdered her.

It read: “My angel Carol, I loved you and I still do with all of my heart. What I have done is beyond belief. I did not want anything to happen like this and it would not have if you had not wanted to teach me a lesson.

“It was bad enough what happened on that Saturday, but with you in the funny mood all the time, wanting to drink and get at me all the time and with your temper and especially mine, it was too much to take in.

“People will not forgive me for what I have done, but they will never know the full extent of how much we loved each other.

“If they had only left us alone to get on with our lives, everything would have been different.

“I will never forget the memories we have together. I also know that wherever you are now, you will be waiting for me.

“Hopefully, it will not be too long because I cannot bear to be parted from you, angel, for too long.

“Please forgive me, my love, because you know now that I have to suffer the rest of this life without you.

“I love you more than anything.

All my love, angel, Dave.”

He was sentenced to life in prison.