By ITV News Correspondent Ben Chapman

A homeless man has admitted murdering two members of a family who had invited him for Christmas just three months earlier.

Aaron Barley, 23, stabbed Tracey Wilkinson and her son, Pierce, 13, to death at their home in Stourbridge, West Midlands in March.

Over several months, she had helped him with food, clothes and accommodation after seeing him sleeping rough outside her local supermarket.

ADVERT

Her husband, Peter, who Barley also attempted to kill, helped him secure a job at the company he runs, and had shared a curry with him just three weeks before the attack

Tracey with her son Pierce who were both stabbed to death in their home.

He told ITV News: “We never anticipated that this would ever happen from such huge acts of kindness, that somebody would come along and take lives. It’s impossible to comprehend.”

Mr Wilkinson had returned from walking his dog on the morning of March 30th, when Barley attacked him in the kitchen of his home.

“As I opened the back door, Barley jumped out and stuck a knife into my shoulder – a big kitchen knife – and then stabbed me repeatedly afterwards,” he said.

Tracey helped Aaron Barley after she saw him on the streets outside a supermarket.

ADVERT

“As he stabbed me I said to him, Aaron we’ve tried to help you. And he stabbed the knife into my abdomen.”

Barley had already murdered Tracey upstairs, and left Pierce seriously wounded. Peter suffered several stab wounds and was taken to hospital after managing to call 999.

“When I was coming out of surgery, when I was coming round, I think my first question must have been, ‘Has Pierce survived?’ And the answer was ‘No, he hasn’t.'”

CCTV footage from the family’s back garden shows Barley hiding out overnight, and waiting for Peter to leave with his dogs in the morning before entering the house.

Lydia Wilkinson with her father Peter Wilkinson.

The family do not know why he turned on them.

Peter’s daughter, Lydia, said: “Members of the family bought him clothes and shoes and whatnot, and exchanged Christmas presents with him, and he sent Christmas cards to them.

“We didn’t want anyone to be on their own or on the streets when we could help them. And that’s what we did and it ultimately caused Mum and Pierce to pay the ultimate price for it.”

ADVERT

Peter said: “I wish we’d never set eyes on him. I wish Tracey had not seen him on that day.

“Tracey was so generous to him, so wonderful to him, and he really did treat her like the mother he never had. And she tried to look after him. On the back of it, this happens and we will never know why.”