A KILLER who stabbed his girlfriend 70 times then spent four hours in the blood-soaked house concocting a cover story was yesterday jailed for life.

So severe were the injuries inflicted on mother-of-two Susan Carr that her mother could identify her only by her distinctive toes.

Last night, Peter Killeen, who spent six years as a patient at Rampton high security mental hospital following a history of teenage violence, was spending the first night of a minimum 12-and-a-half years sentence behind bars for her murder.

Newcastle Crown Court heard that, having murdered his lover in a jealous rage over a seemingly innocent remark, Killeen took careful steps to cover his tracks.

He removed his clothes, wiped clean the kitchen knife he had used in the murder, wrote a false suicide note claiming self defence, doctored diaries to allege his victim had a history of violence, then stabbed himself and took a non-harmful overdose of anti-depressants before ringing paramedics - all part of an elaborate attempt to claim he had acted in self-defence.

But detectives saw through his lies and, faced with overwhelming forensic evidence, the 57-year-old killer pleaded guilty to murder on Monday.

Speaking on the steps of the court, Mrs Carr's mother, 60-year-old Thelma Cruddas, said: "I am disappointed with the sentence. In his case, life should mean life, and that means until the day he dies."

Earlier, Judge David Hodson had heard the full horror of the events that unfolded early on July 7 last year at Killeen's bungalow, in the village of Craghead, near Stanley, County Durham.

Killeen had formed a relationship with family friend Susan Carr months after the death of his third wife.

Throughout the relationship, Killeen had been prone to jealous rages. Mrs Carr was so frightened of him that, having ended the affair, she installed security cameras in her home in nearby Hazel Terrace, changed the locks and phones and took a taxi the short distance to the British Legion Club, where she was a member of the darts team, rather than walk past Killeen's house.

The couple eventually got back together, but the jealousy continued. On Sunday, July 4, the day before Mrs Carr's 38th birthday, the couple had argued over a seemingly innocent joke she shared with a taxi driver, and Killeen stormed off into the night.

Two days later, they met up at the club and were last seen heading back, arm-in-arm, to Killeen's bungalow at about 11.45pm. Detectives believe that, moments later, Mrs Carr was dead.

Killeen's barrister, Ben Nolan, maintained his client had no recollection of events, but detectives said Mrs Carr was attacked on the living room sofa, then fled to the hallway and then the bedroom - where she was cornered.

She suffered scores of blows, which broke her nose and fractured her skull, as she fought to fend off at least 70 cuts with a kitchen knife to her head, face and neck.

Her ear was almost severed and - in a final wound almost certainly inflicted after she was dead - she was stabbed through the abdomen and the blade was twisted into her stomach.

Paul Sloan, prosecuting, told the court: "The post-mortem revealed this was an unusually severe and prolonged attack."

Having butchered his lover, Killeen sat down to work out how he could cover his tracks before finally, at 4.30am, he rang paramedics and claimed he had killed Mrs Carr in self-defence.

Judge Hodson told him: "She made a brave and determined attempt to defend herself from this vicious attack, but in the end she was overpowered by what you had done to her."

Speaking after sentencing, Detective Superintendent Dave Jones - the man who led the team that brought Killeen to justice - said: "This was a cowardly attack on a defenceless woman.

"He tried to lay a false trail, he tried to make it seem like there had been some sort of argument which had been provoked by Susan, but it was proven that he cornered her and stabbed her to death."