Former Soap Star Brutally Murdered by Partner Who Buried Her and Two Sons in Garden Before Fleeing

The shocking case of a former successful soap star’s horrific murder made headlines when her partner was found guilty of bludgeoning her and their two sons to death and burying their bodies in the garden of their home, before fleeing the country.

Sian Blake was a successful actress, with one of her most notable roles as singer Frankie Pierre in the BBC’s EastEnders from 1996 to 1997. Her character pursued married cafe worker Alan Jackson. She also had parts in Casualty, The Bill, Skins and Doctors as well as appearing on stage and doing voiceover work. When she retired from acting she became a sign-language teacher and interpreter.

Behind the scenes, life at home for Sian was troubled. She was in a relationship with former hairdresser and part-time drug dealer Arthur Simpson-Kent and the pair had two sons together, Zachary, eight, and Amon, four. According to reports she was unhappy and wanted to leave her partner.

In 2013 she started to show signs of a neurological illness and on 11 December 2015 she was diagnosed with terminal motor neurone disease. Her condition had left her unable to walk unaided and had weakened her arms. Sian, 43, visited her mum, who she was very close to, shortly after to discuss the possibility of the family moving in with her.

Officers visited their dilapidated home in Erith, southeast London and were met by 49 year old Arthur who told them his partner was “fed up” with her family and had “gone to Cambridge to see a friend”. Minutes after police left he fled the house, dumping Sian’s car in east London and going to a friend who thought he was in trouble because of his cannabis dealing.

He then tried to get a flight out of the UK that night but when he failed to do so, his friend told him he couldn’t go back to his house. So he sent another pal a chilling message, which read: “I need your help tonight. I can’t go into details about what I have done but I only have 2 choices. Go to Ghana one way or die.”

Using his friend’s card he got a coach from London to Glasgow then a flight to his native Ghana via Amsterdam, arriving in Accra on December 19.

Police returned to the family’s home hours after their first visit to find Arthur gone and the house deserted. When they examined inside in more detail they found attempts had been made to cover over blood splatters on the wall with paint.

Texts had also been sent from Sian’s phone to relatives, including her sister Ava, saying that she had “gone away for a few weeks” and was “taking time to myself and my children”. They were sent from the house.

After Sian’s car was found in Bethnal Green an excavation of the garden at the home took place where the bodies of Sian and her two sons, who were aged just eight and four, were found in a shallow grave.

Former Met Police detective Steve Keogh featured in TRUE CRIME’s documentary series Secrets of a Murder Detective where viewers were taken behind the scenes of a murder investigation. He worked on some of the country’s biggest crimes but says when Sian and her boys were discovered, it was one of the hardest moments in his long career.

“I was in the office, and when it fed back from the scene that actually no, it’s a grave and there’s three of them in there, that was a real low point in my career,” he told Metro last year.

“It was just a very sad moment for the whole team. The way Sian and her boys were murdered at the hands of their father is probably the one murder investigation I’ve had that has affected me the most and I will always carry with me.”

A body is removed from the home of Eastenders actress Sian Blake
The bodies of Sian and her two boys were found in their back garden
Post mortem examinations revealed all three victims had suffered serious head injuries and were then stabbed in the neck. “The fact Zachary had defensive injuries gives me the chills,” Steve said. “The fact he wasn’t asleep, and he saw it coming – that’s one of the things that will always sit with me.”

ADVERTISEMENT

Determined to make the killer of the innocent boys and their loving mother face justice for his heinous crimes, Steve and his team set about finding Simpson-Kent. He was tracked down to Ghana and a few days later, on January 9, local police there arrested him on a beach where he was found sipping from a coconut. He told police there was an agreement with Sian to kill her and the kids as she had “no meaningful life” left.

Simpson-Kent pleaded guilty to all three murders and was handed a rare whole life sentence, meaning he will die behind bars. The court heard how he used a small axe to hit Sian and their two young children on the head and knock them unconscious. All three were then stabbed in the neck or throat before he wrapped their bodies in plastic and buried them in shallow graves in the garden.