A pensioner accused of stabbing her film director sister to death and taking her diamond encrusted Rolex had written notes about killing her ‘evil’ sibling, a murder trial heard.
Nancy Pexton, who turned 70 today, is alleged to have slit the throat of Jennifer Abbott, 69, on 10 June last year and left her body to rot, making off with her treasured timepiece.
Pexton is said to have locked her elder sister’s large Corgi dog, Prince, in the bathroom where he survived without food for three days before being discovered when a concerned relative raised the alarm.
Ms Abbott, a film director and author also known as Sarah Steinberg, was found dead wearing only her knickers at her flat in Mornington Place, Camden, north London, on 13 June last year. There was no suggestion she had been sexually assaulted.
Pexton, who was nine months younger than her sister, said she only used the term ‘evil’ to describe her sister as a mechanism to vent. She denies murder.
Continuing his opening of the case to the jury at the Old Bailey today, prosecutor William Boyce KC said the year before she was killed, Ms Abbott forwarded a message to her nephew Feras Abu-Khait which she said was from Pexton.
In the message, Pexton said that she loved her sister but that Ms Abbott had betrayed her because of her jealousy since they were children.
It said: ‘You know jenny I always loved you from my heart and u betrayed me in every way becouse you jelouse of me al the time since we were kids and yiur jelousy turned to hate (sic).’
She said she had been planning to kill her sister but it was ‘just a thought’ and she would never hurt her.
Mr Boyce said Pexton had made ‘a whole series of allegations’ against Ms Abbott.
‘You may think these are expressions of hate mixed with love, coupled with jealousy,’ the prosecutor said.
Mr Boyce added: ‘Her nephew advised her not to go to the police at that stage. Although his aunt was worried, the police were not contacted.
‘The deceased sent messages to her nephew saying she was scared and that the defendant had attempted to murder two of her boyfriends.
‘She suggested that the defendant had hired two people to beat up ‘David’, and asked whether she should apply for a restraining order against the defendant.’
Ms Abbott had also written ‘restraining order against Nancy’ on a piece of paper, the court heard.
Jurors were told a neighbour had broken down the door after Ms Abbott did not answer the door to her niece, Pexton’s daughter.
She said she had been planning to kill her sister but it was ‘just a thought’ and she would never hurt her.
Mr Boyce said Pexton had made ‘a whole series of allegations’ against Ms Abbott.
‘You may think these are expressions of hate mixed with love, coupled with jealousy,’ the prosecutor said.
Mr Boyce said: ‘Her nephew advised her not to go to the police at that stage. Although his aunt was worried, the police were not contacted at that stage.
‘The deceased sent messages to her nephew saying she was scared and that the defendant had attempted to murder two of her boyfriends.
‘She suggested that the defendant had hired two people to beat up ‘David’, and asked whether she should apply for a restraining order against the defendant.’
Ms Abbott had also written ‘restraining order against Nancy’ on a piece of paper, the court heard.
Jurors were told a neighbour had broken down the door after Ms Abbott did not answer the door to her niece, Pexton’s daughter.
Pexton went to hospital on 10 June – the day prosecutors said she murdered her sister – and was initially treated as a witness by police.
But she was arrested on 18 June.
Ms Abbott’s gold Rolex was found in her bags and she claimed her sister had given it to her to keep for her despite previously telling police her sister never took it off.
In the note section of Pexton’s phone, referred to having thoughts about killing her sister, among complaints about other members of the family.
At a police interview, Pexton’s solicitor read a prepared statement on her behalf which said: ‘I loved my sister Jennifer Abbott. I would never harm her and I did not kill my sister.’
She said she would use the notes on her phone to vent her feelings.
‘Those notes are not necessarily a reflection of my inner thoughts,’ she said.
‘Some of those messages were just venting and written when I was under the influence of alcohol.
‘The messages which refer to me wanting or planning to kill my sister were not made with the intention of carrying out those acts, it was just me venting.
‘I do not think my sister was evil, I used that term just to vent but I did not mean it.
‘My sister and I were very close and we would have arguments like many siblings but we would always make up and move on.’
Pexton was charged with murder on 20 June.
Summarising his case, Mr Boyce said: ‘The prosecution say that the defendant murdered her sister, Jennifer Abbott, on 10 June 2025.
‘There is no coincidence in the fact that Ms Abbott was not seen outside her flat after her dog walk on the morning of 10 June, and was not seen or heard from by anyone from that lunchtime.
‘Her phone, something she used daily to interact with friends and family, showed no sign of human interaction after that call from the defendant at 11.36 that morning.
‘Those factors together, you may think, leave you in no doubt that the deceased met her death at about lunchtime on 10 June 2025.
‘The defendant was the very last person to see her alive, leaving her home just before 2pm on 10 June 2025. Thereafter- no sight, no sound, no activity.
‘The defendant has provided varying accounts of the time that she visited her sister.
‘Initially, at around 2pm that day, she told the medics in the ambulance that she had blacked out and had no recollection whatsoever of the preceding hour and half.
‘However by 16 June, her memory had recovered sufficiently for her to provide police with a detailed account of her visit to her sister, incorporating her trip to KFC, the taking of the tramadol belonging to her sister, and most importantly, providing some form of explanation for the blood staining found on her clothing.
‘She did not mention in either of her two witness statements that her sister had given away her prized Rolex watch which, even by the defendant’s own account, she would never have taken off.
‘But the defendant was forced to say the only thing she could say, that her sister had given it to her, when it was found by police in her personal property.
‘So, say the prosecution, having stabbed her sister to death, she took the watch for her own purposes.’
Pexton was homeless at the time of the killing but was staying in a block of flats called Dorset House near Baker Street with her daughter Yvonne.
Ms Abbott went to live in Los Angeles in her youth to become a film producer directing films and writing several novels before moving back to the UK.
Pexton, of Gloucester Place, Marylebone, denies murder.
The trial continues and is expected to last three weeks.
