Elle Edwards was killed outside a pub in Wallasey Village on December 24, 2022, and Connor Chapman is now serving a life sentence with a minimum term of 48 years. Channel 5 is using tonight’s 8pm showing of Murder Scene: The Incident Room to revisit the investigation through the detectives who worked the case.
Paul Grounds said Edwards was “a young, 26-year-old woman with a full life ahead of her. She was the person who would light up the room. She was caring and compassionate for a family who loved her dearly and no Christmas, birthday, Mother's Day or Father's Day or any other family celebration will be the same for the Edwards family.” Chapman was found guilty of murder, attempted murder, and firearm offences at Liverpool Crown Court in July 2023.
Wirral shooting and arrest
Chapman armed himself with a Skorpion submachine gun shortly before midnight on Christmas Eve, then waited outside the Lighthouse pub in Wirral for three hours before opening fire 12 times after spotting Kieran Salkeld and Jake Duffy outside having a cigarette. Salkeld and Duffy were seriously injured, while Edwards was shot in the head by two bullets and died aged 26.
He later fled to a holiday home and was arrested on January 10, 2023, at a Tesco in Newtown, Powys, Wales. The sequence matters because the programme is not revisiting a mystery; it is revisiting how detectives built a case that ended with a murder conviction, attempted murder findings, and firearms offences all heard in Liverpool Crown Court in July 2023.
Paul Grounds on Chapman
Detective Superintendent Paul Grounds led the investigation and described Chapman as “a ruthless and callous individual, and we've seen that by the sheer determination of what has occurred at the Lighthouse public house. He indiscriminately discharged that gun with no thought or care for anybody.” He added, “Throughout his custody period and during the court trial, he's shown absolutely no remorse for his actions. In the words of Elle's father Tim, they have been given a life sentence.”
Grounds also said, “I sincerely hope that, during his lengthy custodial period, the enormity of what Connor Chapman has done will stay with him for the rest of his life.” Chapman later attempted to appeal against the length of his sentence, but the court rejected that challenge, leaving the 48-year minimum term in place.
Tonight at 8pm
Murder Scene: The Incident Room airs tonight at 8pm and puts the investigation itself at the centre of the story. For viewers, the immediate takeaway is simple: the case has already run through arrest, trial, and sentence, so the programme now works as a reconstruction of how Merseyside Police closed in on Chapman rather than as a fresh legal update.
