NIKITTA CASE: Ryan Mayes and killer Whant ‘so close’ (From South Wales Argus)

NIKITTA CASE: Ryan Mayes and killer Whant ‘so close’

4:20pm Thursday 23rd February 2012 in Nikitta Grender trial By Ben Frampton - Crime reporter

WHANT and Mr Mayes were less like cousins and more like brothers, but that did not stop Whant murdering the love of Mr Mayes’ life and killing the baby girl he was preparing to welcome into the world.

Everyone who knew them knew how close they were. They spent all their time together, they worked together, socialised together and confided in each other.

Whant himself said Mr Mayes saw him as a father figure and the 19-year-old himself admitted Whant was “like a brother” to him. Nine years Whant’s junior, Mr Mayes has known the killer of his girlfriend and daughter his whole life.

Mr Mayes and Whant started to get closer when he was 13 and the teenager confided in his cousin and considered him closer than any of his friends.

The pair would talk to each other about personal matters and would disucss things known only to themselves.

Despite their bond, Miss Grender did not want Whant in her and Mr Mayes’ flat, the very place he would enter in the early hours of February 5, 2011, to rape and murder the woman who made no secret of her dislike of him and the way he treated his partner and children.

Mr Mayes said he thought Miss Grender was jealous of the time he spent with Whant.