A HEROIN addict has been sent to prison for life for murdering a 23-year-old woman by giving her a heroin overdose.

A judge said Wayne Adams, 27, of Milton Road, Gillingham, should stay in jail for a minimum of 20 years.

No-one saw Adams injecting Laura Sturla with the massive dose of heroin that caused her death in April last year. He told the jury at Maidstone Crown Court that he had nothing to do with the tragedy.

But he confessed to friends that he had helped her to end her life when she was suicidal.

Laura's body was found by a passer-by on the edge of the Great Lines, a popular recreation area at Gillingham, on April 5 last year.

Mr Justice Field told Adams: "She was a vulnerable victim. She had suffered suicidal tendencies for 10 years, due to severe depression. She was in a psychiatric ward. She was a young woman who needed protecting from herself.

"Instead you cynically took advantage of her vulnerability, obtained the necessary fatal dose and then you took her to a lonely, squalid clearing, injected her with heroin and left her to die.

"You did this because you saw the opportunity of getting your hands on Laura's money to use for your heroin addiction."

A SPECIAL REPORT ON THE KILLING WILL APPEAR IN MONDAY'S MEDWAY MESSENGER