BLOOD stains in a flat where a Stowmarket student was killed showed he cowered on his haunches as he was repeatedly stabbed, a court heard.

Colin Adwent

BLOOD stains in a flat where a Stowmarket student was killed showed he cowered on his haunches as he was repeatedly stabbed, a court heard.

David Heiss denies murdering Matthew Pyke, 20, on September 19 last year after becoming obsessed with his girlfriend over the internet.

Yesterday, during a third day of questioning by prosecutors at Nottingham Crown Court, Heiss was asked about the blood stains found in the former Stowmarket High School pupil's North Sherwood Street flat.

Shaun Smith QC, prosecuting, suggested that blood in one area showed Mr Pyke had been cowering and Heiss told him: "No."

Heiss said Mr Pyke had not cowered but had been in the area next to the bed, where the blood was found, looking for something.

Mr Smith said: "Blood we see further towards where the incident started is him trying to run away. That's what that is, isn't it?

"You chased Matt down that corridor with that knife in your hand?"

Heiss, 21, of Dauborn, Germany, said: "No."

Mr Smith referred to a footprint in blood and asked Heiss if that was caused by Mr Pyke running away.

Heiss told him it was Mr Pyke who ran away with the knife.

Mr Smith suggested Mr Pyke had been stabbed by Heiss a lot of times.

"Why were you running after him?" he asked.

Heiss said: "We had crossed the line that nobody should cross and I was so afraid he would call the police and tell them I had assaulted him."

The court has heard that Mr Pyke's body was found by his girlfriend, Joanna Witton. He had suffered 86 stab wounds.

Previously prosecutors claimed Heiss faked a suicide note from Mr Pyke before travelling to Nottingham to murder him.

Police recovered the blood-stained note from a suitcase under alleged killer David Heiss' bed.

Heiss tried to make it look like Matthew Pyke had written the letter, the jury heard.

The letter referred to Mr Pyke's girlfriend, with whom Heiss was allegedly obsessed, and began: "I'm sorry that I can't take it any more. He is a despicable little man whose preposterous sobbing and crying is utterly pathetic."

Mr Smith asked Heiss: "That's about you is it?"

"Yes," Heiss replied. "I was simply saying this was what I thought was his opinion of me."

The note claimed that Mr Pyke did not love Miss Witton anymore and that Mr Pyke was fed up in Nottingham.

Heiss said he was angry, upset and disappointed after he had visited the couple in Nottingham for a second time.

When he returned Germany, he thought everything would be OK between them.

But, he said there were online "hostilities" from the couple's side again after he returned home.

The court heard Heiss wrote a second document saying he was going to kill himself, but left it at home before the killing.

The jury is expected to retire to consider its verdict today or on Monday.