Murder suspect hid in cupboard for 4 weeks
Police launched an inquiry after discovering his phone had not been used since the day he disappeared. His bank account had also not been touched.
Henry’s body was discovered on New Year’s Eve in the ground floor walk-in cupboard, which is the size of a garden shed, at the housing association-run building where he lived in a one-bedroom flat on the first floor.
He is understood to have died from natural causes.
Detectives revealed on Thursday that Henry had been linked by forensic evidence to the murders of Brown, 69, and Marie, 41, and was a “significant suspect”.
Yesterday neighbours said police had failed to find Henry despite searching the premises after he vanished. Father-of-three Tanzir Ahmed, 42, said: “He would have been in the cupboard for more than three weeks. After he went missing the police came with dogs but they didn’t find him.
“They broke the door down to get into his flat. They also broke into a cupboard on the first floor where he kept his bikes but they didn’t go into the downstairs cupboard. It was locked and they didn’t check it. They came back again on December 31 and that’s when they found him in there.
“They found food. I don’t know what else he had in there. There’s nothing stored inside. There are just water pipes and satellite TV cables. It’s not a big space.
“He must have had a key and locked the door from the inside.”
Mr Ahmed added: “The last time I saw him was at the beginning of December. He was in good spirits.
“In 14 years we never had any problem with him. As a neighbour he was as good as gold. He was a very gentle person.”
After Henry’s body was discovered, a fund-raising website was set up by friends to help pay for his son to fly back to Britain for the funeral. The youngster is thought to be studying in America on a basketball scholarship.
The page, which raised £1,480, read: “Nathaniel was a true pillar of the community who loved helping to make a difference.
“He would always go above and beyond his job by helping the children with any problems they may have had at home.”
Mr Brown, who was jailed for eight years in 1999 for abusing two young girls, was strangled and his body dismembered. His daughter is also believed to have been strangled after disturbing the killer.