Security guard murdered evicting tenant

Nathan Burton collapsed in the street after being stabbed

A man has been convicted of fatally stabbing a security guard who came to evict him from his Birmingham flat due to unpaid rent.

Nathan Burton was stabbed four times in the chest at the property in Woodhurst Road, Moseley, in April 2021 and collapsed in the street.

US national Chad Henderson, who had got into thousands of pounds of rental debt, was obsessed with property rights, police said.

He was convicted of murdering the father-of-one from Wolverhampton at Birmingham Crown Court and will be sentenced in October.

Chad Henderson ran up rental debt at the flat he lived in, police said

Henderson's landlady had asked her son to hire a security firm to evict him after he repeatedly ignored her demands to leave the property.

When Mr Burton and his colleagues from the security firm arrived on 7 April, he saw Henderson was in possession of a bottle and lighter giving the impression he was armed with a petrol bomb, West Midlands Police said.

Officers were called and liaised with both parties telling the security firm they required authority from a court to evict Henderson.

But they returned later in the evening and found Henderson, 43, had barricaded himself in by wedging a sofa at the top of the stairs.

Police said Mr Burton led the group up the stairs before Henderson leaned over the banister and stabbed him four times saying: "Why are you here? Why are you doing that you know you shouldn't be here."

His colleagues pulled him down the stairs and into the street, but Mr Burton collapsed, the force said.

Henderson, who arrived in the UK in July 2020, called police after the stabbing, saying he defended himself, later telling detectives he was putting measures in place to stop a "home invasion".

Det Insp Ade George said it was a tragic case, described Mr Burton as a "loving father", adding his murder had devastated his family.

Mr Burton died on 7 April 2021

"Henderson was a man obsessed with his property rights and exercising and protecting what he believed to be those rights," he said.

"He had decided he wouldn’t be resolved to move from the property, even if that cost was to the life of a person, which turned out to be Mr Burton."

In a statement issued by West Midlands Police, Mr Burton's family said he was "cruelly and brutally" taken.

"Nathan had recently become a father to a little girl aged 10 months at the time of this tragedy," they said.

"He was a doting father and she is now asking her mum the whereabouts of daddy. What does she tell our grand-daughter?

"The verdict does not bring Nathan back to us and we know that all we are left with is some great memories of a wonderful, kind and caring, selfless young man."