Bloody footprint snared 'killer' 30 years after woman was knifed over 140 times at her home in 'savage' attack | 9U6W4P1 | 2024-02-03 06:08:01
Marina Koppell, 39, was discovered butchered by her husband David on August 8, 1994, in Marylebone, central London.
A BLOODY footprint helped snare an alleged killer 30 years after a lady was knifed to dying in her residence in a "savage" attack, a courtroom heard.
Marina Koppell, 39, was discovered butchered by her husband David on August 8, 1994, in Marylebone, central London.
She had been stabbed more than 140 occasions in the course of the assault with the Previous Bailey advised there was blood "all over the place".
Jurors heard how Sandip Patel, 51, was charged with homicide final yr after his foot was matched to a bloody print left on a skirting board within the room where Marina died.
His DNA was also matched to a hair discovered on a ring that the mum-of-two had been sporting on the time, it was stated.
Opening his trial at the moment, prosecutor William Emlyn Jones KC stated: "Marina Koppel was brutally murdered.
"It has taken a really long time to unravel it, but we now have proof that she had this defendant's hair stuck to the ring she was sporting when she was attacked and killed; and his naked foot was pressed towards the skirting board subsequent to her.
"And that, the prosecution say, can only be as a result of it was him who killed her all these years in the past."
The court was advised Marina, who was from Colombia, rented the London flat as a result of she worked as a masseuse and a sex worker.
Though her husband David did not "necessarily approve" of her work, he "accepted it", it was stated.
On the night time she was killed, he had pushed to the capital from his house in Northampton after Marina did not reply his calls.
David, who died in 2005 with out ever finding his wife's killer, found Marina in a bed room with a number of stab wounds.
Jurors heard a plastic bag was additionally discovered at the scene that contained Patel's fingerprints.
However the alleged killer's dad ran a nearby store so the evidence was deemed not robust enough, it was stated.
In 2008, a scientist found the hair on the ring however DNA advances were not robust enough on the time to have the ability to discover a match.
It was only in 2022 that officers have been capable of hyperlink each the jewellery and the bloody footprint to Patel, it was stated.
Mr Emlyn Jones added: "You could have little hassle concluding that if those footprints have been made in Marina's wet blood, then that can only be as a result of they have been left by her killer – someone who was in that room, barefoot, at the time of her blood being on the skirting board.
"All these years later, they've been recognized – they're the defendant's prints – they have been made by the only of his left foot."
Patel denies homicide. The trial continues.
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