Bloody footprint snared ‘killer’ 30 years after woman was knifed over 140 times at her home in ‘savage’ attack
A BLOODY footprint helped snare an alleged killer 30 years after a woman was knifed to death in her home in a “savage” attack, a court 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 times during the attack with the Old Bailey told there was blood “everywhere”.
Jurors heard how Sandip Patel, 51, was charged with murder last year after his foot was matched to a bloody print left on a skirting board in the room where Marina died.
His DNA was also matched to a hair found on a ring that the mum-of-two had been wearing at the time, it was said.
Opening his trial today, prosecutor William Emlyn Jones KC said: “Marina Koppel was brutally murdered.
“It has taken a terribly long time to solve it, but we now have evidence that she had this defendant’s hair stuck to the ring she was wearing when she was attacked and killed; and his bare foot was pressed against the skirting board next to her.
“And that, the prosecution say, can only be because it was him who killed her all those years ago.”
The court was told Marina, who was from Colombia, rented the London flat because she worked as a masseuse and a sex worker.
Although her husband David did not “necessarily approve” of her work, he “accepted it”, it was said.
On the night she was killed, he had driven to the capital from his home in Northampton after Marina failed to answer his calls.
David, who died in 2005 without ever finding his wife’s killer, discovered Marina in a bedroom with multiple stab wounds.
Jurors heard a plastic bag was also found at the scene that contained Patel’s fingerprints.
But the alleged killer’s dad ran a nearby shop so the evidence was deemed not strong enough, it was said.
In 2008, a scientist discovered the hair on the ring but DNA advances were not strong enough at the time to be able to find a match.
It was only in 2022 that officers were able to link both the jewellery and the bloody footprint to Patel, it was said.
Mr Emlyn Jones added: “You may have little trouble concluding that if those footprints were made in Marina’s wet blood, then that can only be because they were 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 have been identified – they are the defendant’s prints – they were made by the sole of his left foot.”
Patel denies murder. The trial continues.