London:

An Indian-origin man has been sentenced to life imprisonment by a court docket right here for murdering a girl 30 years in the past after he was linked to the brutal killing by his strand of hair discovered on the crime scene.

Sandip Patel, 51, was discovered responsible of the homicide of Marina Koppel by stabbing her at the very least 140 instances at her flat within the Westminster space of London in 1994 and sentenced on the Outdated Bailey court docket within the metropolis on Friday.

The Metropolitan Police mentioned revolutionary work by its forensics workforce on his hair discovered on a hoop worn by Koppel lastly introduced Patel to justice all these years later.

“This was a terrific workforce effort with the forensic scientists, fingerprint consultants, the forensic supervisor and the investigating workforce all taking part in their half in fixing Marina’s homicide,” mentioned Dan Chester, Operational Forensic Supervisor and the Met Police’s Forensic Lead for Chilly Case Murder Investigations.

“Forensic methods and applied sciences are continually evolving, and the police will proceed to evaluate severe unsolved instances and, the place doable, pursue new alternatives to allow each the prosecution of these accountable and to exonerate the harmless. This contains instances particularly associated to violence in opposition to girls,” he mentioned.

Marina Koppel , who was 39 on the time of her loss of life, lived and labored in her flat in the course of the week and hung out along with her husband in Northampton in the course of the weekend. It was an unconventional relationship as Marina Koppel labored as a masseuse and occasional intercourse employee, however the two had been fortunately married, the court docket heard. She was described as a loving mom and labored onerous to ship cash residence to her household in Columbia, together with her two kids who had been being cared for by her household there.

On August 8, 1994, Marina Koppel’s husband grew to become nervous when he couldn’t pay money for her for a while and so travelled to her flat to examine she was okay. When he arrived on the flat, he discovered his spouse’s physique unresponsive and lined in blood.

He alerted the police who carried out an evaluation of the crime scene gathering essential proof, together with the ring she was sporting. Throughout their search, additionally they discovered a plastic purchasing bag that had Patel’s fingerprints on it.

Nonetheless, Patel, who was 21 on the time, labored within the store the place the bag had come from so the presence of his fingerprints was not thought of important proof, and for a few years the case went unsolved, the Met Police mentioned.

In 2008 additional gadgets had been examined, amongst them a hoop which had a hair hooked up. Nonetheless, it wasn’t till 2022 when delicate methods obtainable allowed for a DNA profile to be obtained from the hair on the ring.

It was at this stage that the hair was linked to Patel, whose DNA was now on the database after he was charged with Precise Bodily Hurt (ABH) in 2012.

The Met Police mentioned the case was taken on by Specialist Crime detectives who continued to assemble proof.

Patel was arrested on January 19 final yr on suspicion of Marina Koppel’s homicide. Fingerprint consultants then additionally matched his footprints to some bloodstained naked footprints that had been discovered on the crime scene.

This, alongside the DNA on the hair, the fingerprints on the plastic bag and the truth that a financial institution card belonging to Marina Koppel, stolen on the time from her flat, was used at an ATM simply half a mile from his residence shortly after the homicide, was sufficient to persuade the jury of his guilt.

“We’re so happy that lastly Marina’s killer has been delivered to justice. This can be very unhappy that her husband didn’t reside to see at the present time,” mentioned Detective Superintendent Katherine Goodwin, Head of the Specialist Casework workforce for Central Specialist Crime on the Met Police.

“Though Patel has been convicted for the brutal homicide of Marina, we might by no means know the explanations for his actions on that day. Unsolved homicide instances are by no means closed and it’s because of the developments of forensic methods we’ve got been in a position to establish the suspect for this barbaric crime,” she mentioned.

Marina Koppel’s husband died in 2005 however her sister-in-law and brother-in-law, Mary and Martin Koppel, paid tribute to her reminiscence.

“Marina was a daughter, a sister, a mom, a loving aunt, a daughter-in-law and a sister-in-law who was a lot cherished by all of us as she cherished all of us. Had Marina lived, all the lives of her household and mates would have been enriched and additional advanced. Now we have all suffered these many, a few years as a result of we misplaced Marina so early in life,” they mentioned in an announcement.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)