I'm blowing my kids' £60k inheritance to jet to US for a murder trial

A mother is splurging her children's £60,000 inheritance to tick off her checklist of dreams, including jetting off to the US to watch a murder trial.

Louise Eikeland, 57, inherited the sum of money from her parents in 2015 and kept it safe in her bank account for her two children, aged 21 and 23.

But she said following her brother's death in October last year she realised 'life's too short'.

Therefore, instead of passing down the money, the mother-of-two has now decided to indulge herself in a spending spree for once-in-a-lifetime experiences. 

Ms Eikeland, a true crime mega fan, has so far spent £1,700 travelling from the UK to Florida to watch a murder trial live from the courtroom.

She has also been on a month-long trip to India, gone to Crimecon in Nashville, Tennessee, visited Graceland, and took her husband Lars to see Alcatraz. 

In just under a year she has already spent £5,300.

And among other things she still plans to visit is the highest Irish pub in the world in the Himalayan foothills - and the mother intends to spend every penny, with the backing of her two daughters.

Ms Eikeland, who works in fashion, from Guildford, Surrey, said: 'I feel ecstatic.

'It's so exciting having new adventures and meeting fascinating people.

'I got a lump sum when my parents died in 2015 and invested it, but when my brother died I just thought "life is too short".

'I realised it was time to start doing all the things I want to do.

'My daughters would inherit the money from me, and if there's anything left I'll of course help them get on the housing ladder, but when I told them I wanted to use the money to complete my bucket list they said "go for it mum".

'They've both gone to university and started on their own paths now, which is also exciting.'

Ms Eikeland spent £1,500 travelling to and through central India with a friend for a month in November last year - on a $25-a-day budget they slept on trains and in hostels.

She also ticked going to a Crimecon off her bucket list in June, when she attended the three-day event in Nashville.

She followed this with a road trip to Graceland in Memphis - the whole trip costing around £1,400. Then she spent £700 and took her husband Lars to visit Alcatraz.

Also on her list is visiting the highest Irish pub in the world, in Namche Bazar in the Himalayan foothills. She's already been to the lowest bar in the Dead Sea region of Israel.

And she plans to travel from North India to Tibet, and generally to visit four new countries a year.

But the US murder trial was number one, and Ms Eikeland flew to the States from Heathrow on September 13, planning to return on September 30.

Sadly the trial, which was scheduled to last around three weeks, has been postponed, but she has been following the case for eight years and will fly out again to see it.

It involves the trial of Donna Adelson, 73, at Leon County Court in Tallahassee Florida, who is accused of killing Dan Markel - her son-in-law, in July 2014.

Donna's trial has been postponed to find a new defence lawyer.

Ms Eikeland said: 'Innocent until proven guilty, but it seems to me that this is a true family affair.

'It's a fascinating case because this family were well-to-do with everything you could have in lifeboats, cars, flash houses in Florida.'

Ms Eikeland became fascinated with true crime after three key events.

The Yorkshire Ripper's last victim, Jacqueline Hill, was killed just five minutes from Louise's home in Middlesbrough when she was just 13, in 1980.

And a doctor named David Burkett, who Ms Eikeland was seeing regularly when she was in her late teens, was brutally murdered in his home in 1990.

Then she met a journalist, Sandy Fawkes, in a pub in 1990, and Sandy told her about her own encounter with cereal killer John Paul Knowles.