In a shocking murder, a 28-year-old UK man stabbed his wife to death, then chopped her body into over 200 pieces, and stored them in his kitchen for a week before dumping them in a river with the help of a friend.

Nicholas Metson, 28, admitted Friday to stabbing his wife Holly Bramley, 26, in March after weeks of denying the allegations, even joking with police officers who came looking for her that she "might be hiding under the bed".

According to reports, Metson stabbed his wife several times in the bedroom and chopped the body in the bathroom.

He then put the pieces in plastic bags and stored them in a kitchen larder, a cold area for storage of food, before getting rid of them.

Almost a week later and before police arrived at his door, he paid his friend £50 to help him dispose of the body parts. "Just got £50 for disposing of a body," the friend wrote in a text message, as was informed in the court.

A day later, the plastic bags containing the mortal remains of the victim were discovered floating in the Witham River by a morning walker.

One of the bags had a human hand and another had Bramley's shaved head.

In total, divers found 224 body parts with some still missing. The body was chopped in such a way that it was impossible to find a cause of death, the court was told.

Bramley's mother told the court that her daughter had been married for just 16 months and the "evil monster" didn't allow her to meet her family for years and the couple were on the verge of separating when he killed her, she said.

Bramley had once fled her home with her pet rabbits and sought police help after he killed her hamsters by putting them in a food blender and the microwave oven.

He had also put her new puppy in a washing machine, only for Bramley to find the dead animal spinning inside the machine.