A FRENZIED killer who repeatedly stabbed his partner in the middle of the road before calmly lighting a cigarette has died in a North East prison.

Philip Stier was jailed in 2007 after brutally murdering mother-of-five Doreen Corbett.

He died in Durham’s Frankland Prison last Thursday aged 52.

On November 20 2007, knife-wielding Stier chased Ms Corbett out of their South Yorkshire flat before grabbing her by the hair and throwing her to the ground.

In what a judge described at the time as a “ferocious assault” and a “particularly public execution”, he then stabbed her in the stomach four times before jumping on her head.

Two witnesses restrained Stier, who was reported to have then casually lit a cigarette before remarking that Ms Corbett “deserved to die”.

Ms Corbett survived the attack but never regained consciousness and died in a coma five months later.

Stier was convicted of Ms Corbett’s murder in Sheffield Crown Court and sentenced to a minimum of 16 years and three months in prison.

The incident occurred on West Street in the South Yorkshire town of Wath at the height of morning rush-hour traffic.

An inquest into Stier’s death will open on Monday at the Durham and Darlington Coroner’s office in Crook.

A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: “HMP Frankland prisoner Philip Stier died in hospital on Thursday February 25.

“As with all deaths in custody there will be an investigation by the independent Prisons and Probation Ombudsman.”