A 23-year-old footballer murdered in an “awful” revenge killing texted his mother on the night he was killed saying he would see her the following morning.
Former Birmingham City academy player Cody Fisher was stabbed in the chest and killed in a planned attack inside a busy nightclub in Birmingham on Boxing Day in 2022.
Remy Gordon, 23, and Kami Carpenter, 22, were found guily of murdering Mr Fisher on Monday after initially blaming eachother for his death.
His mother Tracey told ITV News: “The last text he sent was – ‘I’ll see you in the morning, I’ll be home by about ten’. So I just couldn’t make any sense of it.
“I was the proudest Mum. I’m just so privileged and honoured to be able to call him my son. He was just an absolute dream.”
Cody Fisher was killed in a Birmingham nightclub on Boxing Day in 2022 (Chris Jepson/Bromsgrove Sporting FC/PA)
(PA Media)
A 10-week trial was told Mr Fisher was attacked with a knife smuggled through security into Digbeth’s Crane nightclub before a pre-planned “act of retribution” for a minor incident on Christmas Eve.
Mr Fisher was stabbed in the chest, penetrating a valve in his heart, and was pronounced dead at the scene, Birmingham Crown Court heard, while a close friend of the victim was chased and kicked but managed to get to his feet and escape.
His uncle Danny Norman added that his death had scarred him for life and telling his sister her son had been stabbed to death was the “worst thing” he’d ever had to do in his life.
“I had to explain to my sister that he’d gone. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever had to do in my life, having to tell my sister that her blue-eyed boy had gone,” Mr Norman told ITV News.
Kami Carpenter, 22, and Remy Gordon, 23, were found guilty of murdering Cody Fisher in 2022
(PA)
Explaining the alleged motivation for the killing, prosecutor Michael Duck KC said: “The prosecution say this was a joint and planned attack involving extreme violence.
“It was not a matter of chance that Cody Fisher was attacked. It was not a flash of temper – it was a planned act of retribution.”
Two days before his murder, Mr Fisher did little more than “touch” Gordon’s back in a different nightclub while the murderer was out looking for an argument with someone, the court heard.
Mr Fisher refused to apologise for doing nothing wrong after he was threatened with violence and left the nightclub with a friend, Mr Duck said.
Mr Duck explained Gordon was left feeling embarrassed and frustrated that he was unable to intimidate Mr Fisher, and decided to “shank him up” by appealing for information about the victim on social media app Snapchat.
Mobile phone footage of Mr Fisher lying on the floor after he was stabbed in the chest and leg on Boxing Day was shown to the court.
Mr Duck told the jury: “That weapon was recovered – it was recovered by medical staff when they came to treat him and it was still embedded in his chest as he lay on the ground.”
Judge Paul Farrer remanded Carpenter and Gordon into custody to await sentencing after the Easter bank holiday. He thanked the jurors for their service and excused them from further jury service for 20 years.
