Until I Kill You viewers horrified after real Delia Balmer keeps reminder of John Sweeney
The four part ITV drama series Until I Kill You tells the true story of former nurse Delia Balmer and her relationship with serial killer John Sweeney, who attempted to murder her in 1994. Starring Anna Maxwell Martin as Delia and Endeavour’s Shaun Evans as Sweeney, the series depicts how Delia was in a relationship with Sweeney from 1991 that became frightening, with him holding her captive and later attacking her with an axe and a knife, leaving her with life-changing injuries.
On Thursday 7 November, ITV followed the series with a documentary narrated by Anna Maxwell Martin about Sweeney and the one woman who survived his attacks, featuring interviews with Delia, who is now in her seventies, who speaks about the events that changed her life. While Sweeney’s crimes, which included the murders of Melissa Halstead and Paula Fields, both of whom he dismembered before dumping their bodies in canals, are shocking enough, viewers of Until I Kill You: The Real Story were also horrified by other moments in the documentary.
During the film, Delia returns to the front door step of the house where Sweeney viciously attacked her, leaving her for dead, and she reenacts his movements for the camera. She also showed the documentary makers two items in her home that were made by Sweeney that she has kept. One is a massage bed, for use in her work as a therapist, which carpenter Sweeney carved for her, and which features his name and the date carved on the base of it.
READ MORE:Until I Kill You - Where serial killer John Sweeney is now
READ MORE:Until I Kill You viewers all left saying same thing within minutes of start of ITV drama
She also has the bed he made for them when they shared a flat together. It is the bed that Sweeney tied Delia to when he subjected her to repeated physical and sexual attacks over the course of four days.
Viewers were shocked by what Delia has kept, and took to social media to comment. "Why has Delia Balmer kept all the furniture that murderous John Sweeney made??? She still sleeps on the bed where she was bound and repeatedly sexually attacked. I’m in shock," wrote one, while a second said: I don't understand why the real Delia Balmer would keep anything relating to John Sweeney - the table he made, the bed he tied her to, his drawings... I'd want completely rid!" A third added: Wow.. Delia still has all the furniture and the bed that that monster made (& mattress by the looks of it). Jeez! I'd have burnt the lot."
In an interview with the Guardian, Nick Stevens, who wrote Until I Kill You, confirms that Delia still has the same bed. “Amazingly, Delia still sleeps in the bed Sweeney made for her and to which he tied her for four days. I can’t be sure how she processes all this. But I’m certain she’s in a better place than she was.”
