Elliots Town murder: Killer Rebecca Press's frantic confession

Rebecca Press (right) admitted murder midway through her trial at Cardiff Crown Court

"Ash, it's really bad... I've just stabbed someone and killed them. I've just murdered someone, please phone me now."

At 01:15 on Sunday 17 July 2022, Rebecca Press left this voicemail for her ex-boyfriend Ashley Allen.

Press, aged 31, was confessing to the murder of Marc Ash, 57, her mother's neighbour and best friend.

She stabbed him after a drink and drug-fuelled row at her mother's flat.

She is now beginning a life sentence and will serve at least 20 years in prison.

The judge, the Recorder of Cardiff Tracey Lloyd-Clarke told her: "It is clear you have caused the most terrible grief to Mr Ash's family."

Mr Ash had lived next door to her mother Michelle in Long Row, New Tredegar, Caerphilly county, for three years.

'Always there for me'

He and Michelle quickly became close friends and saw each other most days.

"He was my bestie," she told detectives in a video interview hours after his death. "We were like two peas in a pod. He was always there for me. He was a beautiful soul and she took him."

Rebecca Press had been drinking and taking drugs on the day of the murder

Michelle had invited her daughter to spend the weekend with her after her boyfriend Ashley had walked out of their home in Trecynydd, Caerphilly. Her mother said she was left with nothing, no food and no money.

He wasn't returning her calls. Press was frantically texting his mother, trying to find him.

Press - known as Beccy to her family - was in chaos.

In the past couple of years, she had what her mother described as "problems with valium" and on the morning of the murder, Press had taken four tablets.

Rebecca Press with her mother Michelle and brother Gavin

It was a hot summer's day. Mother and daughter sat in the communal garden with three friends: Marilyn, Chris and Steve. Marc Ash was there too. The mood was jovial. There were drinks and the men were watching rugby on an iPad.

As the afternoon went on, Press decided she wanted a change of scenery. Mr Ash agreed to go with her, and they went to the New Tredegar Rugby Club and the Dynevor Arms.

But later that night, the mood changed. The two left the club and went up the hill to the Dynevor Arms for more drinks.

Press thought she had been locked into the toilet; but she hadn't - the latch was stiff. She became increasingly angry, shouting at bar staff.

At around 11.30, Mr Ash called Michelle to tell her what was happening. In an interview she told detectives, "Marc said Beccy was playing up. He said 'I can't cope with her.' I said to him just come home."

Mr Ash returned to the flat and watched a film with Press's mother.

'I stabbed your best friend'

Less than an hour after that Press returned to the flat drunk and angry. She and her ex-boyfriend had been texting.

She found her older brother Gavin at the flat and the siblings began rowing. Gavin was a friend of his sister's ex-partner.

Michelle tried to intervene, shouting at them both to be quiet, or leave. There were elderly neighbours and she didn't want them to be disturbed.

The mood darkened. Press thought her mother had spat at her as she shouted at her to be quiet.

She headbutted her mother, who went into the bedroom to try to stop the bleeding from her nose with a duvet cover.

Press took a blade from the kitchen drawer, pulling the drawer out onto the floor in frustration.

Gavin told the court, "She kept asking me where Ashley, her ex-partner was." He said she threatened to stab him.

Hearing the raised voices, Mr Ash came into the kitchen.

"Will you just calm down Bec," he told her. "What is wrong with you?"

What happened next is unclear. In a statement given to the police shortly after the murder Gavin says "I saw her raise the knife and stab Marc in the middle of the chest."

He later said that statement had been "twisted".

In court he said what happened to Mr Ash was an "accident". He said: "It wasn't even a stab. He walked into it".

Beccy went into her mother's bedroom and told her: "I have stabbed your ******* best friend. She took her phone and fled.

'She took him'

Gavin and his mother tried to help Mr Ash as he lay on the kitchen floor

He put him in the recovery position while his mother sang and talked to him as they waited for help to come.

The 7.5cm (3in) blade Press had grabbed from the kitchen drawer had pierced the aortic arch above his heart. The injury was unsurvivable and he was pronounced dead at 2am.

Sitting in the living room of his mother's flat now, Gavin looked over to the kitchen floor where he died.

"I saw it all happen by there, it was an accident."

But he acknowledges the depth of the loss felt by everyone who knew and loved him. "I'm gutted for Marc and his family, obviously."

He said his sister is filled with remorse and is not sure she will cope with life inside.

"I know she's going to be in a category A prison for 20-plus years."

Their mother has lost the man she called her best friend, murdered by her daughter who now faces years behind bars.

She told the court: "Marc was a beautiful soul. She took him."