A 24-year old expectant father was hacked to death in front of his pregnant fiancé by three masked men who broke into their England home.
The attackers, currently on trial for the 2010 murder of Danny Gough, allegedly tracked down Gough's location using Facebook, the Daily Mirror reported.
"The venture was carefully planned, the participants had acquired detailed knowledge not only as to the location but also as to the interior of the address and where people might be," prosecutor Mark Heywood said during his closing arguments, the Daily Mirror reported.
Gough said he was returning home to Croydon, London after a trip to Brighton.
"Had a great weekend, coming home," Gough wrote on Facebook the day before he was killed on Dec. 14, 2010, the New York Daily News reported.
The three men, 32-year-old Sam Monteith, Stephen Dougherty, 35, and Paul West, 29- then broke into Gough's home during the early morning hours.
They pulled Gough from his bed and attacked him with an ax and a machete. The men also allegedly used a sword during the attack, which occurred in front of Gough's pregnant fiancée, Kareena Modashia.
The men "went to his door, shouted 'police' as a distraction, as a cover, they forced their way through the door," Heywood said during the trial, the Croydon Advertiser reported.
"They dragged him from his bed, pulled him to the floor and hacked and stabbed at his body causing so many serious wounds that he had no hope of survival," Heywood said, according to the Croydon Advertiser.
Prosecutors say the attackers were armed with a bottle of ammonia, which they sprayed into Gough's eyes to incapacitate him during the assault. They also sprayed ammonia in the eyes of Modashia and her mother, so they would not be able to later identify them.
According to the Daily Mirror, there was an ongoing dispute that began in June 2010 when one of Gough's friends allegedly made fun of Monteith for wearing "wacky" pants to a bar one night. On Nov. 3, Monteith was at home when three men armed with ammonia and a knife attacked him. Gough was allegedly one of Monteith's attackers that night, the Daily News reported.
Gough's murder was "motivated by revenge and the need to send a message, a message that the men involved were not to be trifled with," the Croydon Advertiser reported.
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