London

A 51-year-old Indian-origin man, who murdered a mother of two children 30 years ago, has been sentenced to life after new DNA techniques used on a single hair left at the scene proved he was the killer. Sandip Patel, who stabbed 39-year-old Marina Koppel more than 140 times in a flat in Westminster on August 8, 1994, was convicted of murder and sentenced at the Old Bailey court, the source reported on Friday.

Patel, who was a 21-year-old student at the time of the murder, became a suspect in 2022 after investigators found a hair strand stuck in a ring worn by Koppel. While sentencing Patel, Justice Cavanagh said aggravating factors included the use of and attempted disposal of a knife, the gratuitous and sustained violence, the vulnerability of Koppel, and a lack of remorse, the source reported.

He wrote that the terror and pain inflicted on Koppel is difficult to imagine, and that she was deprived of many more years of life. No sentence that is passed can compensate the family of Mrs. Koppel for their loss, he added. The jury deliberated for more than three hours before finding Patel guilty.

According to the Metropolitan Police, Koppel’s husband found her body unresponsive and covered in blood when he reached her Westminster flat and alerted the police. Following a crime scene analysis, police found the ring and a plastic shopping bag that had Patel’s fingerprints on it.

However, Patel worked in the shop where the bag had come from, so the presence of his fingerprints was not considered significant evidence, and for many years the case went unsolved, the Metropolitan Police said in a statement released on Thursday.