NRI Sandip Patel has been sentenced to life in prison for the brutal murder of 39-year-old Marina Koppel,
whom he stabbed more than 140 times.

 

Los Angeles/ Feb 19, 2024
NRIpress.club/Ramesh/A.Gary Singh

NRI Sandip Patel, 51, stabbed 39-year-old Marina Koppel more than 140 times in her rented flat in Chiltern Street, west London on August 8 1994.

A killer whose bloody footprints were used to solve a 30-year-old murder near the fictional home of Sherlock Holmes has been jailed for life.

Sandip Patel, who helped at his father’s newsagent Sherlock Holmes News on Baker Street in London, stabbed 39-year-old Marina Koppel more than 140 times in her rented flat in nearby Chiltern Street on August 8 1994.

The then 21-year-old student’s finger marks were found on a carrier bag in Colombian-born Mrs Koppel’s kitchen but he was not treated as a suspect at the time.

He was charged with her murder last year after his DNA was matched to hair on the victim’s ring and he was linked by a bloody footprint on a skirting board.

Mr Justice Cavanagh sentenced Patel to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 19 years, using guidelines that were in place when the murder occurred in 1994.