Pair sentenced to life for dancefloor killing of footballer Cody Fisher
Remy Gordon, 23, and Kami Carpenter, 22, attacked him in revenge for him bumping into one of them two days earlier, a court heard.
The two men who murdered footballer Cody Fisher in an ‘orchestrated group attack’ have been given life in jail.
Cody Fisher, 23, was stabbed to death on Boxing Day 2022 during a night out with friends at the Crane venue in Digbeth, Birmingham.
Remy Gordon, 23, and Kami Carpenter, 22, were convicted of his murder as they attacked him after a minor altercation two days earlier, a court heard.
They were given minimum terms of 26 and 25 years respectively at Birmingham Crown Court today.
Jurors were told Mr Fisher’s murder was a ‘planned act of retribution’ after he bumped into Gordon’s back while leaving the Popworld bar in Solihull two days before.
The pair exchanged a few words, but Gordon did not forget about the brief Christmas Eve encounter.
He took to social media to identify the person who brushed past him at the crowded bar, learning his future victim’s name – and that he was likely to visit the Crane club on the 26th.
Mr Fisher – a semi-professional footballer who played for Stratford Town FC – was headbutted, punched and kicked before being stabbed in the heart. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
His girlfriend Jess Chatwin, who was with him at the club on the night of the attack, posted an emotional tribute on X the day after he was killed.
She wrote: ‘You didn’t deserve any of this. I’m so sorry this has happened to you my baby please come home. I love you forever Cody Fisher.’
In a statement read out in court, she said her world ‘shattered’ as her boyfriend took his last breaths in her arms.
She said: ‘Seconds before that moment I remember turning around and looking at Cody behind me and he gave me the biggest smile full of love and happiness – now I question if that was his goodbye.
‘The next time I turned around he was surrounded by those attacking him and I watched him fall to the floor, then reality struck that he had been fatally stabbed.
‘My life stopped that day, I live each day with enormous pain, loneliness and sadness.
‘I was supposed to spend the rest of my life with Cody. Now I have to face the world without his love and guidance, something he always showed me while we were together.
‘He was my strength in every situation and now I have to face it all alone.’
Both Gordon and Carpenter were arrested and charged within days of the death, but their trial did not begin until January this year.
Mr Fisher’s mum Tracey said she and her family were serving ‘life sentences’ following the Boxing Day tragedy.
She said: ‘I will not get to see him go on to do more amazing things, like inspire many more children and adults as he used to do, have holidays with him and go to his footie matches every week to see him kick a ball like he’d done from the day he could walk.
‘Sadly, I will never see my son live on through his children and as such never enjoy any grandchildren from him.
‘Cody Fisher was brave, fearless and the most genuine soul I knew, I had the pleasure and honour to call him my son, may you rest in peace my beautiful boy.’
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